


<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/synced-patterns-the-evolution-of-reusable-blocks/">Synced Patterns: The Evolution of Reusable Blocks</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-live-product-demo-highlights-recording/">WordPress 6.3 Live Product Demo – Highlights &amp; Recording</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-29 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-2/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/">WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-2-release-candidate-phase-2/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate Phase</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/30/6-3-release-parties-schedule-and-hosts/">6.3 Release Parties Schedule and hosts</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide and Dev-Notes</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-block-selectors-api/">Introducing the Block Selectors API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/">Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/layout-updates-in-the-editor-for-wordpress-6-3/">Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/social-icons-block-applied-colors-now-dynamically-update-based-on-theme-json-and-global-styles/">Social Icons block: Applied colors now dynamically update based on theme.json and Global Styles</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/">Miscellaneous Editor changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/bundled-themes-dropping-internet-explorer-scripts-and-styles/">Bundled themes dropping Internet Explorer scripts and styles</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/improvements-to-the-cache-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the Cache API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/configuring-development-mode-in-6-3/">Configuring development mode in 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/i18n-improvements-in-6-3/">I18N Improvements in 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/image-performance-enhancements-in-wordpress-6-3/">Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/wp_query-used-internally-in-get_pages/">WP_Query used internally in get_pages()</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/registering-scripts-with-async-and-defer-attributes-in-wordpress-6-3/">Registering scripts with `async` and `defer` attributes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/">New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/improved-caching-for-database-queries-in-wp_user_query/">Improved Caching for Database Queries in WP_User_Query</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-developer-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/">Miscellaneous developer changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-34 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-32 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-july-12-2023/">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on July 12, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/new-handbook-page-for-wordcamp-organizers-wordcamp-speaker-selection-for-content-and-diversity/">New handbook page for WordCamp Organizers: WordCamp Speaker Selection (for content AND diversity)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/12/summary-of-the-q2-community-team-role-updates/">Summary of the Q2 Community Team Role Updates</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/25/a-week-in-core-july-24-2023/">A Week in Core – July 24, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/">What’s new in Gutenberg 16.3? (26 July)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/24/i18n-performance-analysis/">I18N Performance Analysis</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Phase 3 Ideations</h3>



<ul>
<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/03/real-time-collaboration/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Real-Time Collaboration</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/04/workflows/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Workflows</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/revisions/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Revisions</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/07/media-library/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Media Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/10/block-library/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Block Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/admin-design/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Admin Design</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/">Beyond block styles, part 1: using the WordPress scripts package with themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/make-your-sites-typography-make-a-statement/">Make your site’s typography make a statement</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/whats-new-for-developers-july-2023/">What’s new for developers? (July 2023)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/how-to-modify-theme-json-data-using-server-side-filters/">How to modify theme.json data using server-side filters</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/core-editor-chat-summary-26th-july-2023/">Core Editor chat summary: 26th July 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/25/dev-chat-agenda-july-26-2023/">Dev Chat agenda, July 26, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/24/online-monthly-docs-team-contributor-day-july-25-2023/">Online monthly Docs Team Contributor Day July 25, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-end-user-documentation/">Call for volunteers to help with 6.3 end-user documentation</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/24/documentation-team-update-july-24-2023/">Documentation Team Update – July 24, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hosting"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting">Hosting</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/26/hosting-team-meeting-agenda-2023-07-26/">Hosting Team meeting agenda 2023-07-26</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/26/wordpress-hosting-survey/">WordPress Hosting Survey</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/07/20/matrix-chat-summary-july-20-2023/">Matrix chat Summary – July 20, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/20/make-team-dashboards/">Make Team Dashboards</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/15/triaging-open-issues-on-trac-for-make-teams/">Triaging open issues on Trac for Make Teams</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/11/linking-to-supporting-orgs/">Linking to Supporting Orgs</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mobile"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile">Mobile</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/26/mobile-team-update-july-25th/">Mobile Team Update – July 25th</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/25/community-meeting-recap-2023-07-25/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-07-25)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/24/last-week-openverse-2023-07-17-2023-07-24/">A week in Openverse: 2023-07-17 – 2023-07-24</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/25/performance-chat-summary-25-july-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 25 July 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/07/24/tackling-team-challenges-together/">Tackling team challenges together</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/24/plugin-review-team-24-jul-2023/">Plugin Review Team: 24 Jul 2023</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/26/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-july-26-2023-0700-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – July 26, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/07/13/proposal-for-establishing-a-make-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-deib-team-within-the-wordpress-community/">Proposal for Establishing a Make Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (“DEIB”) Team within the WordPress Community</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Support</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/07/wp-contributor-mentorship-program-support-team-onboarding-meeting/">WP Contributor Mentorship Program: Support Team Onboarding Meeting</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/07/agenda-for-july-27th-support-meeting-2/">Agenda for July 27th Support Meeting</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability">Sustainability</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/07/27/sustainability-chat-agenda-july-28-2023/">Sustainability Chat Agenda, July 28, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/24/test-team-update-24-july-2023/">Test Team Update: 24 July 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/07/26/themes-team-meeting-notes-july-25-2023/">Themes Team Meeting Notes – July 25, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/25/themes-team-update-july-25-2023/">Themes team update July 25, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/26/training-team-meeting-recap-25th-july-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap – 25th July 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/25/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-learn-wordpress-updates/">Call for Volunteers to help with 6.3 Learn WordPress updates</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/improving-website-performance-with-caching/">Improving website performance with caching</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/installing-node-js-and-npm-for-local-wordpress-development/">Installing Node.js and npm for local WordPress development</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=apac-exploring-some-of-the-new-6-3-wordpress-features">APAC: Exploring some of the new 6.3 WordPress features</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=exploring-some-of-the-new-6-3-wordpress-features">Exploring some of the new 6.3 WordPress features</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=onboarding-to-test-team">Onboarding to Test Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=testing-wordpress-6-3-developer-edition">Testing WordPress 6.3 – Developer edition</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-3">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-2">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=mentorship-program-introduction-to-the-wordpress-open-source-project">Mentorship Program: Introduction to the WordPress Open Source Project</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=what-is-the-domain-name-system-4">What is the Domain Name System?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=what-is-the-domain-name-system-3">What is the Domain Name System?</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/developing-with-the-wordpress-rest-api/">Introduction to developing with the WordPress REST API</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/tv">WordPress TV</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/tv/2023/06/15/enhancing-slide-management-for-video-publications/">Enhancing Slide Management for Video Publications</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordCamp Central</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-malaysia-2023-is-looking-for-speakers-and-sponsors/">WordCamp Malaysia 2023 is Looking for Speakers and Sponsors</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-masaka-2023-celebrating-inclusion-diversity-and-innovation-with-wordpress-in-ugandas-pearl-of-africa/">WordCamp Masaka 2023: Celebrating Inclusion, Diversity, and Innovation with WordPress in Uganda’s Pearl of Africa!</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.jquery.com/2023/05/11/jquery-3-7-0-released-staying-in-order/">jQuery 3.7.0</a></li>



<li><a href="https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-1">PHP 8.3.0 Alpha 3 available for testing</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1"></a><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-2">PHP 8.2.8 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-3">PHP 8.1.21 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v6.8.0">PHPMailer 6.8.0</a></li>



<li><a href="https://262.ecma-international.org/">TC39</a></li>



<li><a href="http://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.8">Composer 2.5.8</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong>   <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>.  </p>



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<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript">Transcript</a> ↓</p>



<p class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">In this episode, <a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> interviews <a href="https://twitter.com/jjtoothman">J.J. Toothman</a>, owner of <a href="https://lonerockpoint.com/">Lone Rock Point</a>, a WordPress agency based in Sudbury, Massachusetts. J.J. shares his agency journey, discussing the growth of his agency and its remote-first approach.</p>



<p class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><strong>Episode Highlights:</strong></p>



<ul type="video" class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
<li><strong>The Growth of Lone Rock Point</strong> [00:00:32] JJ discusses the growth of his agency, Lone Rock Point, from 4-5 people in spring 2020 to 16 people now.</li>



<li><strong>Remote-first Approach</strong> [00:02:29] JJ talks about adopting a remote-first organizational structure from the beginning and how they didn&#8217;t miss a beat when the pandemic hit in 2020.</li>



<li><strong>Focus on Public Sector and NASA</strong> [00:04:02] JJ explains his background in government contracting and how his agency focuses on working with the public sector, particularly in the federal level, including clients like NASA.</li>



<li><strong>The federal government ecosystem</strong> [00:11:29] Discussion on the ecosystem and governance of federal government agencies, including guidance and policies.</li>



<li><strong>Starting Lone Rock Point</strong> [00:13:39] JJ&#8217;s decision to start his own agency after exploring side hustles and feeling the desire to be more entrepreneurial.</li>



<li><strong>Niching down to WordPress</strong> [00:18:25] The growth and success of Lone Rock Point after focusing on WordPress as their main service offering.</li>



<li><strong>Topic 1: Using WordPress as a Content Management System</strong> [00:22:17] Discussion on using WordPress as a content management system and adapting WooCommerce for check payments.</li>



<li><strong>Topic 2: WordPress and the Public Sector</strong> [00:22:58] Exploration of using WordPress in the public sector, particularly in government agencies like NASA, for managing and publishing content.</li>



<li><strong>Topic 3: Web Modernization Project with NASA</strong> [00:28:26] Overview of a web modernization project with NASA, including evaluating different CMS options and deciding to invest in WordPress.</li>



<li><strong>The SEO and Accessibility Tools in WordPress </strong>[00:32:35] Discusses the real-time analysis tools in WordPress for SEO and accessibility, such as Yoast, and how they differentiate it from other CMS platforms.</li>



<li><strong>The Resources and Knowledge Sharing in the WordPress Community </strong>[00:34:57] Explains the abundance of resources, knowledge sharing, and community support available in the WordPress ecosystem compared to other CMS platforms.</li>



<li><strong>The Importance of Open Source and User Experience in WordPress</strong> [00:37:11] Highlights the significance of open source adoption in the public sector and how WordPress&#8217;s user experience and inclusivity differentiate it from commercial solutions.</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/a2-hosting">A2 Hosting</a></h3>



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<p>A2Hosting offers solutions for WordPress and WooCommerce that are both blazing fast and ultra-reliable. WordPress can be easily deployed on ANY web hosting plan from A2: Shared, VPS, or Dedicated. A2 also offers Managed WordPress and WooCommerce Hosting. Take a look at a2hosting.com today!</p>
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<img width="752" height="470" src="https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/imageedit_1_6433774706-752x470.png" alt="A2 Hosting" class="wp-image-104073" />A2 Hosting
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-mentioned-in-the-show">  Mentioned in the show<strong>:</strong></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://lonerockpoint.com/">Lone Rock Point</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.com/">WordPress&nbsp;</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a></li>



<li><a href="https://automattic.com/">Automattic</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wpvip.com/">WordPress VIP</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.fedramp.gov/">FedRAMP</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://wpvip.com/partners/">WordPress Agency Partnership Program</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.rtx.com/">Raytheon</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/ames">Nasa Ames Research Center</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.recodingamerica.us/">&#8220;Recoding America&#8221;</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/pahlkadot?lang=bn">Jennifer Palka</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://woocommerce.com/">WooCommerce</a></li>



<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikis</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/">Ticketfly</a></li>



<li><a href="https://digital.gov/resources/21st-century-integrated-digital-experience-act/">Integrated Digital Experience Act</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.drupal.org/">Drupal</a></li>



<li><a href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/sites/aem-sites.html">Adobe Experience Manager</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wagtail.org/">Wagtail</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/">Gutenberg</a></li>



<li><a href="https://atomicdesign.bradfrost.com/chapter-2/">Atomic Design System</a></li>



<li><a href="https://yoast.com/">Yoast</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/">WordPress plugins</a></li>



<li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/">Stack Overflow</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter">  You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper">
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/jjtoothman">JJ Toothman</a> (Owner, <a href="https://lonerockpoint.com/">Lone Rock Point</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p class="eplus-wrapper has-background">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis.  <br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simplecast</a>, or <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>.  </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-transcript">Transcript</h2>



<p>Cory Miller (00:00:02) &#8211; Hey everybody. Welcome back to Post Status Draft. Got another great interview in our agency Journey series and I&#8217;m talking with JJ Toothman, a member of Post Status and JJ, Hey, thanks for coming on post this draft and talking about your agency journey story.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:00:18) &#8211; Hey, thanks for having me. Cory. It&#8217;s great to be here. Um, really appreciate everything you do for post status and for the community. So I&#8217;m happy to be, um, you know, a member of both. So.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:00:32) &#8211; Awesome. Well, we&#8217;ve gotten to get to know each other over the last, like, I&#8217;d say, what, eight months and hear about some of the work that your agency does. It&#8217;s super, super exciting. But can you tell me about the agency where it is now? Team clients kind of work. You kind of do.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:00:50) &#8211; There&#8217;s my dog and wife.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:00:54) &#8211; Great introduction.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:00:55) &#8211; Yeah. Um, so the. So my company is Lone Rock Point and I am located outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in a town called Sudbury.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:01:09) &#8211; Um, if you know the Revolutionary War history, you remember the Battle of Lexington and Concord and Sudbury borders. Concord. I live about five miles from where Paul Revere was captured at the end of his famous ride to tell everybody the British were coming. Oh, wow. Lone Rock Point. We have grown it to 16 people. You know, 12 of those people are full time. And there&#8217;s a handful of of, of part timers. Um, the were distributed all over the place. Uh, I&#8217;ve got, you know, some of us are in California, Texas. Uh, Michigan. There&#8217;s a few people in around Grand Rapids. There&#8217;s people in Florida, a few people around Asheville, North Carolina. And we definitely, you know, adopted a remote first, you know, virtual kind of organization, organizational structure from the very beginning. You know, when when the pandemic happened in 2020, we didn&#8217;t miss a beat. You know, our the people that we were working with, you know, just it just continued.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:02:29) &#8211; It&#8217;s weird to look back on that time and think about the, you know, ways that we were able to grow during that time in a period where so many small businesses were were, you know, struggling. But, you know, look back on that time and think about like we, you know, we were, you know, going remote, being virtual. That wasn&#8217;t a problem for us. We were ready to do that for the very beginning. And the people we were worked with, like just we just kept working on it, kept asking for more from us. It was actually a period of growth for us. We probably went from, you know, at the beginning of. You know, spring 2020, we were around four people and 4 or 5, and now we&#8217;re 16. We became a WordPress agency approximately 15, 16 months ago. Um, and we joined WordPress is kind of a continuation of our work with the public sector when I started my company in 2016. Um, you know that we can talk about the genesis of that, but it was, you know, I was had come from a federal government contracting world and I&#8217;ve been working for big companies like Raytheon, um, Perot Systems, Dell and, you know, decided that, you know, I wanted to start my own company, you know, had this, you know, the proverbial entrepreneurial itch that most entrepreneurs feel and just kind of wanted to try that out.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:04:02) &#8211; So I started to serve this company and wanted to start working. There were two customers that I wanted to work with from the very beginning, and one of those was NASA, which is it&#8217;s hard for me to talk about my own journey and the work that we&#8217;re doing without connecting to the long history I have working with with NASA. So I use that relationship and that relationship capital that I&#8217;ve built, you know, from starting working with them back in as early as 2001. Well, one of my first clients and then one of my second clients, big clients was Automattic. Some people over there that had built relationships over the years came to me and said, Hey, you know a lot about, you know, this public sector world, you know, federal government contracting. Can you help us, you know, with kind of get into that vertical and so help them with some some business strategy around that? I helped them with some security compliance, things they needed to be aware of. And then that relation, you know, that work kind of matured a little bit and kind of ran its course a little bit.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:05:15) &#8211; And then, you know, as they as WordPress VIP, you know, kind of solidified its it&#8217;s standing and it&#8217;s got themselves into what&#8217;s called the Fedramp marketplace. You know, they came to me and said, Hey, you should, you know, your company, you should we should continue working together. You should join the WordPress Agency partnership program. And that&#8217;s something I did, you know, specifically because of our shared interest in working together on public sector opportunities. And, um, you know, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s really what my company is doing right now is, you know, Lone Rock Point. We are, we&#8217;re definitely exploring that intersection of WordPress and public SpaC, public sector, predominantly the federal level of that. You know, there&#8217;s a lot of state and municipal stuff opportunities there as well. Um, but we&#8217;re, you know, the, the kind of the, when you think of like WordPress and public sector, what I want people to come out of that connection with is is Lone Rock point and so that&#8217;s you know that&#8217;s work we&#8217;re doing with and and work we&#8217;re doing with NASA and it&#8217;s going we&#8217;ve been working on some projects from NASA for the past few years.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:06:31) &#8211; And it&#8217;s it&#8217;s really rewarding work. It&#8217;s good to feel like you&#8217;re contributing to. You know, we&#8217;re not civil servants, but we&#8217;re definitely kind of contributing to. You know, putting the taxpayer dollars to work, being good stewards of taxpayer money. And we think WordPress has a a role in that.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:06:54) &#8211; Excellent. Well, there&#8217;s a lot here I want to unpack, but it&#8217;s so compelling. Congratulations on your success. Congratulations on what you&#8217;ve done in the public sector to take WordPress there. I love hearing stories like yours and our other members doing good work in our world. And I get to I think I&#8217;ve told you, I get to brag, Hey, I know the people working on these projects, you know, which is pretty fantastic, and taking WordPress to the Enterprise, but Public sector Spaces is really fantastic as WordPress grows. So okay, I want to I want to thank you for telling us kind of what Lone Lone Rock Point does today. So I heard in there 2016. So I, I had assumed, as we had talked for because of the kind of work you&#8217;re doing, you had been doing this particular agency type work for a long time.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:07:49) &#8211; But wow, that&#8217;s why I say congrats one, Congratulations on your success. But like it&#8217;s pretty fast timeline to be able to get to doing an agency to doing this kind of work, I think. But can you take me back like before 2016, you said you were doing enterprise or. Yeah, public sector government, government contracting work. What were you doing before the agency?</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:08:10) &#8211; Before. Before I founded my agency. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I was a software developer, web application developer. I got hired by Raytheon to work on a contract they had with NASA Ames Research Center. And back in 2001, actually, the thing that the opportunity that kind of brought me into that world was that&#8217;s when they first started thinking about like, what do they have to do about website accessibility? So they brought me in there to kind of help, you know, help, you know, mature what they were doing around all that kind of stuff. And it&#8217;s been interesting to see what the what where was thinking about this over the last couple of weeks.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:08:57) &#8211; You know, when I first started working at NASA Ames and started talking about website accessibility and looking at all the various websites and web applications that was that were running at Ames Research Center, which is one of the, you know, field centers that&#8217;s part of the the NASA enterprise. Um, there was people were really just they were really resistant to it. They were trying to. They were trying to check the box on it quite a bit. You know, they were just like, What&#8217;s the minimum I have to do to, like, just check the box on this and so I can move on. Like it really the the optics of how important that was and just it just being the generally the right thing to do, forget the whole legal requirements of it all that really just wasn&#8217;t cemented. And here we are, you know, 20 plus years later where, you know, that&#8217;s that&#8217;s kind of like at the core of what is happening definitely in the public sector, but in the web in general, just like this, this strong emphasis on making it accessible and available to everybody.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:10:00) &#8211; You know, I saw how that started, you know, 20 years ago. And it&#8217;s it was not the same temperature, both from various from developers, designers, project managers, you know, that whole thing is shifted in very positive ways over the last couple of decades. So I was a software developer there working on various, um, you know, web applications, internal business process type applications, looking at accessibility improvements. Um, and then just kind of grew things over the years, you know, you know, started, you know, started rising the ranks a little bit, like getting opportunities to understand how government projects actually work, how it works, which is a pretty thing. I started participating in proposals that big companies like Dell were doing and responding to government RFPs, which are massive undertakings unto themselves, um, understanding compliance and security regulations that exist in government, in government, and really just kind of understanding how these governments, these government agencies and, you know, as individual as they kind of have their own ecosystems unto themselves, that&#8217;s probably not, you know, unique to all various massive, you know, corporate enterprises.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:11:29) &#8211; You know, we talk a little bit about the WordPress ecosystem now, but these these federal government agencies, they all have their own ecosystems around it. And then they&#8217;re also operating in this big federal thing where there&#8217;s kind of like this. Um, Jennifer Palka just wrote this great book called Recoding America, and she calls this term friendly fire. So where there&#8217;s like things where like the Office of Management, the OMB and General Services Administrations and other offices and agencies within the executive branch and other parts of government are putting together governance and policy around it and how the web should work. Um, and it creates all this types of, you know, these, this guidance and guardrails that you have to adhere to. So that becomes like kind of a larger ecosystem unto itself. So, you know, starting to understand how to work within that type of, um, you know, those types of scenarios and guardrails and boundaries and knowing how to interoperate it all just became, you know, something that started gaining more experience with and more exposure to with and, you know, think it&#8217;s been a big, you know, that knowledge is a big part of like why, you know, my company&#8217;s positioned and why we&#8217;ve achieved some success.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:12:44) &#8211; You know, working and and gaining some credibility in parts of the public sector and procuring our relationship with with WordPress VIP and, you know, expanding our own opportunities within itself. Yeah, it&#8217;s exciting. It&#8217;s challenging. Exhausting at times, but it&#8217;s also exciting and rewarding.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:13:04) &#8211; Yeah. Yeah. I can&#8217;t imagine. So just just for clarity. So you&#8217;re working full time at Raytheon or were you contract as a software?</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:12) &#8211; So a contract means you&#8217;re you&#8217;re you&#8217;re like you&#8217;re kind of embedded, so you&#8217;re a full time employee and you&#8217;re your government contractor working on a contract that, you know, a company like Raytheon or Dell or Booz Allen or Lockheed Martin has with the federal government to deliver services abilities that are part of their requirements.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:13:39) &#8211; Okay. Okay. That totally makes sense. So what was that catalytic moment when you&#8217;re like, Hey, I&#8217;m gonna do this for myself, I&#8217;m gonna start my agency?</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:46) &#8211; Yeah.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:13:47) &#8211; So prompted that. Um.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:50) &#8211; A couple of things. So I left NASA for a while and I went and worked for a company, a music ticketing startup called Ticket Fly.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:13:58) &#8211; I helped them, like, basically create a network of websites for small independent music venues, um, and help those music venues talk about, you know, what shows were coming, how to buy tickets, you know, when the on sale dates were and all the other, you know, all that content that is basically all about converting into ticket sales. And so I was with was, you know, with them when they were really small. And, you know, it was definitely the startup world and that was really exciting. It was also a bad time for my life. I just had like my my second child and like my work life balance was it was it was pretty bad. Um, you know, working at a small startup like that. So ended up going back to NASA. Um, you know, and just trying to, like, find my footing a little bit. I also wanted to leave California and move relocate back to the East Coast. And I knew that was, you know, being in a place, a large organization like that would offer some flexibility like that.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:15:05) &#8211; Um, but then, you know, I would say around a decade, you know, ten years ago. I started having this, you know, I started having that entrepreneurial itch again. I started thinking about, like, how fun it was to, you know, move fast at ticket fly and wanted that that feeling again. And so I started, you know, I explored a couple of like side hustles, you know, some small little independent web projects. One of them was like a newsletter to help families spend more time outdoors. And they didn&#8217;t really take off. They didn&#8217;t really get get some traction. And what I mean by that, it wasn&#8217;t necessarily traction from a, you know, where we&#8217;re making revenue or gaining customers. We were just like just the balance of of, you know, trying to do do that type of initiative while, you know, having a full time job and also like, you know, having a growing family and all that kind of stuff. And then in but was it was clear that.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:16:06) &#8211; You know, I was exploring something. And, you know, again, that desire to to like be in more, you know, control of of of my destiny, so to speak, and be entrepreneurial is something I just couldn&#8217;t I couldn&#8217;t get rid of completely. And it wasn&#8217;t happening within big companies like Dell in the way that I wanted to know. I really wanted to be, you know, in control of a lot of decisions that wasn&#8217;t in control of, um, and, you know, that&#8217;s why people start their own things and, you know, be founders of companies. And, you know, I had dinner with a friend of mine who was also in the government contracting space. He&#8217;s like, you know, you&#8217;ve been thinking about. And he told me he&#8217;s like, You&#8217;ve been thinking about all these little product ideas, these digital product ideas, like, you know, just just start a services business, you know, like and that will satisfy your need or the desire. You have to be entrepreneurial and, you know, like, you know, look at balance sheets and think about marketing and, you know, attracting talent and retaining talent and stuff like that.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:17:12) &#8211; And he was right. He was like, You know what? That&#8217;s a really good idea. And within 120 days, I&#8217;d like set the wheels in motion to, you know, start Lone Rock Point. Um, and, you know, we, we went from there. So it started in the fall of I started the company in the fall of 2016. It was just me for, you know, a year. And then it was like me and a virtual assistant for like another year. And I, you know, I started under this like this umbrella of like, digital transformation consulting. At the time, I was doing a lot of work with the public sector around cloud transformations. So people were were operating applications and on premise data centers and starting to make that migration into things like Amazon Web Services. And so working out a lot of change management type type projects associated with that. And it all kind of just fit under this like big umbrella of digital and cloud transformation, which, to be totally honest with you, is, is is too vague and too broad and borderline meaningless.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:18:25) &#8211; You know, if you ask ten different people what digital transformation is, you&#8217;re probably going to get ten different definitions of it. Yeah. And so it&#8217;s really hard to like, you know, grow a services business out that way is really just like me being a consultant at that point. Um, and it wasn&#8217;t until like started niching down into, you know what, like let&#8217;s just do this WordPress thing, you know, was I was delivering, um, you know, whitepapers and providing analysis of like how what people should do with like their, their inventory of web applications and advising them on what is and what platforms they should be using. And a lot of times ended up started like you know, making recommendations around WordPress oriented applications, sometimes just building WordPress sites, sometimes using WordPress as an application framework. Um, in over the, in the time I&#8217;ve been with NASA. I&#8217;ve used WordPress with them and a lot of different ways. We&#8217;ve done it in a WordPress network multi-site kind of way for allowing smaller NASA missions and programs and projects to, you know, have their own websites where they all communicate what they&#8217;re up to and what their findings are and share what they learned with, you know, with, with interested stakeholders and visitors to their sites.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:19:55) &#8211; Um, there, there&#8217;s been some internal things where needed to like communicate various services as it had to various corners of the agency. So we did like a WooCommerce thing where people can go to a web application, a website and just pick what, what services they want. Like I need, I need some Amazon cloud storage or processing or, you know, EC2 units. And they could apply, they could add all those things to a cart and then say, check out and, you know, check, you know, do a checkout with that and just start getting services provided to them that way. So um, and then, you know, over time it just became clear that like, this is, I keep recommending this, like there&#8217;s growth opportunity for me here and then, you know, niching down to being like, we&#8217;re going to be a WordPress, a more traditional WordPress agency is really when, you know, the growth started happening and the opportunity started becoming a little bit. And it isn&#8217;t just like strategic consulting, it became the execution part of it as well.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:21:00) &#8211; And the tactics part of it too, and the tactics and execution. We&#8217;re all oriented for the most of the time.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:21:06) &#8211; Yeah, I&#8217;d love to hear these stories because you got, you know, a big career in enterprise and public sector, you know, with your Raytheon and NASA days and then entrepreneurial hit. Okay, want to do this and then seeing you know when you say NASA and WordPress, it just seems like those things should always go together, you know, and that&#8217;s what really compelling to me is seeing WordPress more on the public sector enterprise. And now there&#8217;s really big institutions in in the US federal government anyway, probably around the world too, but that are starting to use WordPress more and more and leverage it and see that opportunity. Um, so I love kind of how those intersection of things happen. So that lone rock point would kind of exist and grow and then you hit your I was going to ask the question when the WordPress come into play, but you pretty much answered it. So like your 2 or 3 or so, it seems like, hey, we&#8217;re going to drill down.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:22:04) &#8211; And then when you mention WooCommerce that like that use case for an internal tool within a big organization like that to procure and get resources and things, that&#8217;s so compelling. You know, most of my.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:22:17) &#8211; Career that like, people just wanted that checkout expert, They wanted that. They wanted that experience of like, I want X, Y and Z, I want to add it to the cart and I want to tell you that I want it. And we just, you know, WooCommerce has that option to, you know, just do check payments, right? Which removes the credit card processing out of it. And so we kind of adapted that to, all right, we&#8217;re going to send this order to somebody who can fulfill that order via this WooCommerce WordPress system. Um, and, you know, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, you know, it&#8217;s using the WordPress ecosystem at its best, like using it almost kind of as Legos and want this part of it. I want that part of it. I want to, I want to glue them together in this way.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:22:58) &#8211; And it&#8217;s, you know, kind of a no code kind of way around WordPress to solve some, you know, some very simple, narrow use cases. But, you know, my, my journey with WordPress, you know, starts way back in 2007 at my first stint with at Ames Research Center. Um, you know, I was working with all these various scientists and researchers and they just like need a place to like publish my, my research findings and publish my data and, and they, they all one, they all had the same, um. You know, requirements and needs. At the highest level, it&#8217;s like I just need a place to put it. And I want to I want to be able to manage it myself in a way. And I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t know how to don&#8217;t know how to code. I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t have anybody on my team who knows HTML. And so that, you know, that basically introduced the concept of like content management systems into all this back in 2007.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:24:03) &#8211; And, you know, we were looking at things like wikis at the time and, and then discovered WordPress and around that and just the user experience of someone just, you know, managing their content with that type of, you know, WordPress, CMS, this is like version 2.0 of WordPress, you know, back when they added pages in addition to posts was the real thing. That&#8217;s like, oh, this is what this satisfies what everyone&#8217;s looking for. They want an easy place just to log into. And you know, they all some of them wanted to start blogging. Some of them wanted to start blogging without knowing that they wanted to start blogging. They just want to share what they know and tell their stories. Um, and then back in 2007, I created this is also the Web 2.0 era where, you know, your blogging was, was kind of heavy in the lexicon back then. And I was I did one of NASA&#8217;s first official public blogs on WordPress and, and kind of grew with WordPress, you know, from there that led to the ticket fly work.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:25:13) &#8211; And so WordPress was kind of always in my DNA, even when wasn&#8217;t, you know, it wasn&#8217;t like a defined part of what I was, you know, of my, my role description. But my role was in some cases to be strategic and provide advice and provide some roadmaps. And, you know, how do we do things? Give us some give us some guidance here. And a lot of times just said like, well, you don&#8217;t have to create a custom bespoke application for this. Just use a content management system like WordPress, you know, teach your users how to how to how to manage using WordPress themselves. And and you go from there. So and the WordPress ecosystem is what makes all that happen mean there&#8217;s all these different, you know, there&#8217;s all these different plugins and themes and you just kind of integrate it all together, um, you know, in a unique way. And you have a great solution architecture, depending on how you put it together.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:26:08) &#8211; What you&#8217;re talking kind of way back.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:26:11) &#8211; But you know, remember a lot of the solutions that we have now didn&#8217;t exist. So, you know, big organizations were having to do like the the internal resourcing that you&#8217;re talking about. They&#8217;d have to custom code those things or build them because they didn&#8217;t exist off the shelf. Then you fast forward and you go, you could take WooCommerce save. I can&#8217;t even imagine how much time to kind of do git to feature like, you know, par with that and then take that open source solution and then utilize it and just customize with a with a great agency like you all to figure out what their exact needs are. So it&#8217;s it&#8217;s great to see how everything has fast forward to. Well, we touched on this. I know we&#8217;re going to have more conversations down the road. And and I want to talk more about the public sector and enterprise. And I know we&#8217;re talking and we&#8217;re going to have some great conversations in the next couple of months about this, because I know you&#8217;re passionate about it, about the public sector and bringing WordPress to the public sector, but we&#8217;ll save that for another time.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:27:07) &#8211; I don&#8217;t want to spoil too much of that, but I appreciate so much the journey and what you&#8217;re doing. So thank you for telling us that. That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s that&#8217;s incredible. Um, okay. What are you excited about today? What are you excited about today and the future going forward and what you&#8217;re doing with the agency and your team and the work you&#8217;re doing?</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:27:27) &#8211; Yeah. So a few years ago, the government, Pervez passed a Congress passed an act called the Integrated Digital Experience Act. And within that act is basically it tells all these federal agencies how to modernize their website. So, you know. Obvious things like improve accessibility. They have to be accessible. They have to work on mobile. They. They. You have to have like good search. They should. People should be able to find content there. They also need to be based on user research and user needs. So they&#8217;re all logical things within. You know, public sector and it&#8217;s all so I&#8217;m really excited about that. Be something that initiates or triggers a lot of the work that I&#8217;ve been doing for the last couple of years.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:28:26) &#8211; And so for the last few years I&#8217;ve been working on a web modernization project with NASA. It exists for a couple of reasons. It exists. One, because of that idea act. It also exists because NASA has a couple of thousand websites and they don&#8217;t want there to be a couple of thousand websites. They want all that information in one website. So we&#8217;ve been doing a lot of work with them. You know, that started back in kind of mid 2000, late 2000, and it started with, hey, what should be using for its main, you know, web source, major web properties. And so I spent a year taking a look at the landscape of you know, of all the available CMS&#8217;s that are out there, you know, Drupal source site, Adobe Experience manager and then some new newer ones like Wagtail. And then there&#8217;s even we even took a look at, you know, some of the software as a service type solutions like Contentful and just trying to understand the pros and cons of Elda.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:29:38) &#8211; And so we spent a year taking a look at the CMS landscape and acquiring data for it, acquiring evidence of it. And while in my heart, you know, being a WordPress guy, I knew like, you know, WordPress makes a lot of sense here. You know, we it&#8217;s still there was a lot of benefit for me to kind of like take a look at like what, you know, all the driving factors for making a decision like that were, um, and you know at the end of it WordPress like was the, the solution, the CMS that NASA wanted to invest in for the future. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve been working on for the last couple of years. So for the last couple of years we&#8217;ve been working on a couple of big. Uh, NASA WordPress projects. And a lot of, you know, I talked a lot about how I&#8217;ve been using WordPress and a no code kind of way. This is not a no code kind of way. There was a lot of Gutenberg custom development here.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:30:34) &#8211; It&#8217;s the, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s the project that has everything like, you know, an emphasis on SEO, an emphasis on accessibility. There&#8217;s a new atomic design system that was created for this. And so the seeing the marriage of an atomic design system and Gutenberg, you know, come to bring all that stuff to life has been really, really exciting. And I&#8217;m excited to like for, for, you know, people, you know, interested in what NASA is up to and people interested in WordPress to see the fruits of all this labor that we&#8217;ve been working on for the last couple of years and it&#8217;s all coming in the next few months. And yeah, so I&#8217;m really excited to share that with you and share that with other people in the community.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:31:19) &#8211; Yeah, that&#8217;s excellent. So I want to take just a minute in sidebar because you did this whole year, you know, one of seeing what&#8217;s out there, seeing what the options are. And I love that you&#8217;ve done some deep, deep research for big organizations trying to make a big, important decision on it.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:31:36) &#8211; Um, I&#8217;m just curious what we&#8217;re couple takeaways. As you just surveyed the landscape. You know, we love WordPress. We understand, you know, we, we support WordPress, but, but we know that there&#8217;s a lot of stuff out there. Um, but I&#8217;m curious, what, what did the landscape look like? Where were some of the things you saw when you looked at the other platforms you mentioned like Wagtail? I hadn&#8217;t heard that one before. I&#8217;ve heard of Contentful for instance, and of course Drupal. But what, what were a couple of the takeaways on that year of investigation out there?</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:32:08) &#8211; So the I, I would say that there are two major, maybe three major differentiators that separated WordPress from the rest from the rest of the pack. If you will. Um, you know, there&#8217;s a lot of great content management systems out there. You know, they all do the same thing or try to do people the same. They try to make it easy for people to publish information onto the web and make it easy for others to consume it.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:32:35) &#8211; But the differentiators from WordPress versus the other CMS that we were looking at were number one. A lot of again, it had a lot of it had to do with the ecosystem. WordPress was the only CMS that had real time analysis tools around SEO. So and accessibility to kind of try to improve those situations before the point of publishing. So Yoast is the obvious example. So Yoast, you know, we&#8217;ve all been exposed to Yoast. Yoast allows you to allows the content creator user to be authoring and editing content and getting some real time analysis about how friendly or compatible, whatever the term you want to use it is before the point of publish. There&#8217;s accessibility tools out there that do the same things that are kind of integrated within the WordPress Admin WordPress dashboard that allow that content creator user to like, you know, when it&#8217;s in draft format to analyze. Do I have accessibly accessible content that I&#8217;m about to publish in here and make live other CMS didn&#8217;t have that baked in. You know, there&#8217;s WordPress plugins that do these things.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:33:51) &#8211; Um, we could even, we even have the ability to prevent publishing until certain excessively thresholds and SEO optimization thresholds are met. That was really, really attractive. All the most of the majority of the other solutions are you publish it first it&#8217;s live and then you can go back and check it and then you kind of have to retrofit it. I&#8217;ve been working in enterprises enough to know that that doesn&#8217;t happen once it&#8217;s published, Once it&#8217;s out there, people are generally going to move on. They&#8217;re not going to do the analysis of like, All right, how do I go back and improve this thing? So you really got to you really got to catch those things early and often. Um, you know, up front in the, in the content publishing lifecycle. So that was one of the big differentiators was that and that again, that&#8217;s all a product of the WordPress ecosystem and the innovation that comes out of that ecosystem. The other one was just kind of like the resources around this. So we all, you know, you can take for a grain of salt like, you know, the the whole thing about, you know, WordPress powers, 40% of the web, you know, that kind of stuff.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:34:57) &#8211; But there is some byproduct of that. And that is there&#8217;s a lot of people using it. There&#8217;s a lot of people building it. There&#8217;s a lot of people developing on it. There&#8217;s a lot of people extending on. There&#8217;s a lot of knowledge being shared around that. One of the things I did was I went in the stack overflow and compared WordPress with other CMS&#8217;s and just being like, How many conversations are happening around this thing, you know, that we&#8217;re looking at? And it was, you know, what you expected, the ability for, you know, to be able to. Try to solve a problem by getting by by, you know, interfacing or sponging up knowledge that was already contributed back in some way, you know, via via StackOverflow or, you know, other places on the Web, other groups, Slack channels, etcetera, that exists in WordPress in a way that it doesn&#8217;t exist in these other, you know, CMS products. You know, the if you want to if you want to get developer knowledge around Adobe Experience Manager, you for for the most part there are some Adobe experience manager specialists out there, but for the most part you got to go to Adobe for it.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:36:02) &#8211; Um. Uh, you know, same thing with sorts. There&#8217;s not there&#8217;s not a huge community of sort site developers out there. So for a place like NASA, you know, resource acquisition becomes a problem. Like, where are they going to find talent for that? Yeah. And you know, again, WordPress, you know, kind of is head and shoulders above the rest in that area. Um, and then, you know, this whole concept of WordPress is for everyone to like that. That rang true in all this research too. Like it&#8217;s more than just developer community. There&#8217;s user communities out there that are also sharing their knowledge here. Um, you know, there&#8217;s all these kinds of like, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s solutions for learning WordPress that are provided by the communities and multiple companies with the community that add a lot of value within the equals. So it&#8217;s not just like the software ecosystem, but it&#8217;s like, you know, the kind of service ecosystem to that exist within WordPress. Um, and then honestly, like, you know, portability matters to, um, you know, there&#8217;s, for the most part, like I really just wanted public sector to adopt open source.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:37:11) &#8211; You know, that&#8217;s the first decision I want, I want them to do is just, just, you know, make an open source decision. And then you&#8217;ve done that. You know, you&#8217;re in a good you&#8217;re in a better place than picking a commercial, you know, bespoke solution. You know, And then, you know, once you get past that hurdle now, you know, the obvious open source can cannot exist. And you know, the user experience of WordPress and that whole concept of WordPress being for everyone and being considering everyone, depending on who you are, really rings true and is a differentiator as well.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:37:50) &#8211; Well, that&#8217;s excellent. And that rings true. You know, I&#8217;m curious because as I talked to more enterprise agencies, all of you out there in the world interfacing with clients, with their needs, what they actually are trying to get done. That&#8217;s really, really great to hear and it&#8217;s reflective of the community. I think sometimes they&#8217;ve been in the community like you as long as we have.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:38:10) &#8211; I take some of those things for granted. So I think that&#8217;s that&#8217;s excellent. Well, JJ, thanks so much for the time today. I know you just got back from a big trip and you&#8217;ve got work to pile out, but I appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing your agency journey, and I look forward to our next conversation, sharing the good work you&#8217;re doing with WordPress in our world. That too.</p>



<p>J.J. Toothman (00:38:31) &#8211; Corey Thanks for having me.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:38:34) &#8211; All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here today. And we&#8217;ll talk to you. We&#8217;ll see. We&#8217;ll talk to you. We&#8217;ll hear from you. They&#8217;ll listen to us soon.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:00:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Cory Miller";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"Post Status: WordPress 6.3 RC1 • Field Guide • Gutenberg Phase 3";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-rc1-field-guide-gutenberg-phase-3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-rc1-field-guide-gutenberg-phase-3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25778:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (July 17, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">WordPress 6.3 will arrive on August 8, so there isn&#8217;t much time left for testing compatibility. Whether you are a plugin or theme maintainer or managing clients&#8217; websites, now is the time to test the latest features. Mike Schroder shares their most anticipated feature with auto-rollbacks coming.Collaborative editing is coming to WordPress, but what might&hellip; </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media-container"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container"><span class="kadence-dynamic-icon"></span></div></div></div></div><div class="kt-infobox-textcontent"><h2 class="kt-blocks-info-box-title"> WP 6.3, Field Guide, Phase 3</h2><p class="kt-blocks-info-box-text"><br />  <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a><br /><br />  <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/">Sneak a Peek at WP</a><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/"> 6.3 with Mike Schroder</a><br /><br /> &#x200d;  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a><br /><br />3&#x20e3; <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/phase-3/">Gutenberg Phase 3</a><br /><br />  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a><br />><br /></a><br /><br />><br /></a><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-60-sneak-a-peek-at-wordpress-6-3-with-special-guest-mike-schroder/">WP Briefing: Episode 60: Sneak a Peek at WordPress 6.3 with Special Guest Mike Schroder</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/designed-with-wordpress/">Designed with WordPress</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-40 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-3-accessibility-improvements/">WordPress 6.3 Accessibility Improvements</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-release-candidate-1/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate 1</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/wordpress-6-2-release-candidate-phase-2/">WordPress 6.3 Release Candidate Phase</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/30/6-3-release-parties-schedule-and-hosts/">6.3 Release Parties Schedule and hosts</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide and Dev-Notes</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-field-guide/">WordPress 6.3 Field Guide</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-block-selectors-api/">Introducing the Block Selectors API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/introducing-the-wordpress-command-palette-api/">Introducing the WordPress Command Palette API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/layout-updates-in-the-editor-for-wordpress-6-3/">Layout updates in the editor for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/social-icons-block-applied-colors-now-dynamically-update-based-on-theme-json-and-global-styles/">Social Icons block: Applied colors now dynamically update based on theme.json and Global Styles</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-editor-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/">Miscellaneous Editor changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/bundled-themes-dropping-internet-explorer-scripts-and-styles/">Bundled themes dropping Internet Explorer scripts and styles</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/17/improvements-to-the-cache-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the Cache API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/configuring-development-mode-in-6-3/">Configuring development mode in 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/i18n-improvements-in-6-3/">I18N Improvements in 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/image-performance-enhancements-in-wordpress-6-3/">Image performance enhancements in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/wp_query-used-internally-in-get_pages/">WP_Query used internally in get_pages()</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/registering-scripts-with-async-and-defer-attributes-in-wordpress-6-3/">Registering scripts with `async` and `defer` attributes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/new-in-6-3-rollback-for-failed-manual-plugin-and-theme-updates/">New in 6.3: Rollback for failed manual plugin and theme updates</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/improved-caching-for-database-queries-in-wp_user_query/">Improved Caching for Database Queries in WP_User_Query</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/miscellaneous-developer-changes-in-wordpress-6-3/">Miscellaneous developer changes in WordPress 6.3</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-45 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-43 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/07/17/accessibility-team-meeting-agenda-july-21-2023/">Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: July 21, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-july-12-2023/">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on July 12, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/new-handbook-page-for-wordcamp-organizers-wordcamp-speaker-selection-for-content-and-diversity/">New handbook page for WordCamp Organizers: WordCamp Speaker Selection (for content AND diversity)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/12/summary-of-the-q2-community-team-role-updates/">Summary of the Q2 Community Team Role Updates</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/a-week-in-core-july-17-2023/">A Week in Core – July 17, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Phase 3 Ideations</h3>



<ul>
<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/03/real-time-collaboration/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Real-Time Collaboration</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/04/workflows/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Workflows</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/revisions/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Revisions</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/07/media-library/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Media Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/10/block-library/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Block Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/admin-design/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Admin Design</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/beyond-block-styles-part-1-using-the-wordpress-scripts-package-with-themes/">Beyond block styles, part 1: using the WordPress scripts package with themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/make-your-sites-typography-make-a-statement/">Make your site’s typography make a statement</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/whats-new-for-developers-july-2023/">What’s new for developers? (July 2023)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/07/how-to-modify-theme-json-data-using-server-side-filters/">How to modify theme.json data using server-side filters</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/19/editor-chat-agenda-july-19th-2023/">Editor Chat Agenda: July 19th, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/dev-chat-agenda-july-19-2023/">Dev Chat agenda, July 19, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Design</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/07/03/design-share-jun-19-jun-30/">Design Share: Jun 19–Jun&nbsp;30</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/call-for-volunteers-to-help-with-6-3-end-user-documentation/">Call for volunteers to help with 6.3 end-user documentation</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/18/agenda-for-docs-team-bi-weekly-meeting-july-18-2023/">Agenda for Docs Team bi-weekly meeting July 18, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/17/documentation-team-update-july-17-2023/">Documentation Team Update – July 17, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hosting"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting">Hosting</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/11/hosting-team-meeting-agenda-2023-07-12/">Hosting Team meeting agenda 2023-07-12</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/05/15/is-wordpress-compatible-with-php-8/">Is WordPress compatible with PHP 8?</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing">Marketing</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/06/26/notes-global-marketing-team-meeting-20-june-2023/">Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, 20 June 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/06/19/notes-global-marketing-team-meeting-13-june-2023/">Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, 13 June 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/20/make-team-dashboards/">Make Team Dashboards</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/15/triaging-open-issues-on-trac-for-make-teams/">Triaging open issues on Trac for Make Teams</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/13/new-filter-controls-discover-commercial-and-community-in-the-theme-and-plugin-directory/">New Filter Controls: Discover “Commercial” and “Community” in the Theme and Plugin Directory</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/11/linking-to-supporting-orgs/">Linking to Supporting Orgs</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/09/new-curation-filter-in-pattern-directory/">New curation filter in Pattern Directory</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mobile"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile">Mobile</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/mobile-team-update-july-12th/">Mobile Team Update – July 12th</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/04/11/contribute-to-the-future-of-the-wordpress-app/">Contribute to the Future of the WordPress App</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/mobile-team-update-july-12th/">Mobile Team Update – July 12th</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/18/community-meeting-recap-2023-07-18/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-07-18)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/17/last-week-openverse-2023-07-10-2023-07-17/">A week in Openverse: 2023-07-10 – 2023-07-17</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/performance-chat-summary-18-july-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 11 July 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/17/plugin-review-team-17-jul-2023/">Plugin Review Team: 17 Jul 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/19/weekly-polyglots-chat-july-19-2023-1300-utc/">Weekly Polyglots Chat – July 19, 2023 (13:00 UTC)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-3-ready-to-be-translated/">WordPress 6.3 ready to be translated</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/07/13/proposal-for-establishing-a-make-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-deib-team-within-the-wordpress-community/">Proposal for Establishing a Make Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (“DEIB”) Team within the WordPress Community</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Support</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/06/wp-contributor-mentorship-program-support-team-edition/">WP Contributor Mentorship Program: Support team edition</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability">Sustainability</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/07/14/sustainability-chat-summary-july-14-2023/">Sustainability Chat Summary, July 14, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/themes-team-update-july-12-2023/">Themes team update July 12, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/07/13/themes-team-meeting-notes-july-11-2023/">Themes Team Meeting Notes –&nbsp;July 11, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/learn-wordpress-july-2023-newsletter/">Learn WordPress July 2023 Newsletter</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/10/training-team-2023-half-year-review/">Training Team 2023 Half Year Review</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/08/next-steps-for-github-updates/">Next steps for GitHub updates</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/08/announcement-updates-to-team-meeting-times/">Announcement: Updates to team meeting times</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/07/project-thread-learning-pathways-on-learn-wordpress/">Project Thread: Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/it-choosing-and-installing-a-theme/">Scegliere e installare un tema</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/7-tips-to-improve-website-security/">7 Tips to improve website security</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=testing-wordpress-6-3">Testing WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=come-join-the-wordpress-training-team-4">Come join the WordPress Training Team!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-3">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-validate-content-feedback-for-the-wordpress-training-team-2">How to validate content feedback for the WordPress Training Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=mentorship-program-introduction-to-the-wordpress-open-source-project">Mentorship Program: Introduction to the WordPress Open Source Project</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/developing-with-the-wordpress-rest-api/">Introduction to developing with the WordPress REST API</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/tv">WordPress TV</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/tv/2023/06/15/enhancing-slide-management-for-video-publications/">Enhancing Slide Management for Video Publications</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordCamp Central</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-dhaka-2023-has-been-cancelled/">WordCamp Dhaka 2023 Has Been Cancelled</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-rochester-is-back/">WordCamp Rochester is Back!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-san-jose-2023-looking-for-speakers-and-sponsors/">WordCamp San José 2023: Looking For Speakers And Sponsors!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/06/wordcamp-finland-back-to-tampere-with-educational-insightful-and-thought-provoking-talks/">WordCamp Finland: back to Tampere with educational, insightful and thought-provoking talks</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



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<li><a href="https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-1">PHP 8.3.0 Alpha 3 available for testing</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1"></a><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-2">PHP 8.2.8 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-3">PHP 8.1.21 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v6.8.0">PHPMailer 6.8.0</a></li>



<li><a href="https://262.ecma-international.org/">TC39</a></li>



<li><a href="http://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.8">Composer 2.5.8</a></li>
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<p class="has-text-align-left has-small-font-size"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter/">newsletter</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png" alt="✉" class="wp-smiley" /> Listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcasts/">podcasts</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png" alt="🎙" class="wp-smiley" /> Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status/">@Post_Status</a> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="🐦" class="wp-smiley" /> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-status-llc/">LinkedIn</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4bc.png" alt="💼" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
</div></div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:00:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"Post Status: WordPress 6.3 Beta 4 • Help Test • DEIB New Team Proposal • Gutenberg Phase 3";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-beta-4-help-test-deib-new-team-proposal/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-beta-4-help-test-deib-new-team-proposal/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22073:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (July 11, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">WordPress 6.3 is less than one month away. Get started testing now and tune in for the live product demo. As we head into WordPress 6.4&#8217;s kickoff, it&#8217;s time to set our sights on Gutenberg Phase 3: Collaborative Editing. Your feedback to the ideas presented is important. The first cohort of New Contributor Mentorship Program&hellip; </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media-container"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container"><span class="kadence-dynamic-icon"></span></div></div></div></div><div class="kt-infobox-textcontent"><h2 class="kt-blocks-info-box-title"> WP 6.3, DEIB, Mentorship, Phase 3</h2><p class="kt-blocks-info-box-text">β <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-beta-4/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 4</a><br /><br />  <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/6-3-live-product-demo/">6.3 Live Product Demo</a><br /><br /> &#x200d;  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a><br /><br />3&#x20e3; <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/phase-3/">Gutenberg Phase 3</a><br /><br /> &#x200d;  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/xpost-announcing-the-inaugural-cohort-of-the-wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program/">Contributor Mentorship Program!</a><br />><br /></a><br /><br />><br /></a><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_b57166-6e"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/wordpress-6-3-beta-4/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 4</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/6-3-live-product-demo/">6.3 Live Product Demo</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/people-of-wordpress-allison-dye/">People of WordPress: Allison Dye</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/07/episode-59-a-polyglots-wordpress/">WP Briefing: Episode 59: A Polyglot’s WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-50 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-48 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/13/improvements-to-the-metadata-api-in-wordpress-6-3/">Improvements to the metadata API in WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/30/6-3-release-parties-schedule-and-hosts/">6.3 Release Parties Schedule and hosts</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/07/07/accessibility-team-meeting-agenda-july-7-2023/">Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: July 7, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/xpost-announcing-the-inaugural-cohort-of-the-wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program/">Contributor Mentorship Program!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/13/new-handbook-page-for-wordcamp-organizers-wordcamp-speaker-selection-for-content-and-diversity/">New handbook page for WordCamp Organizers: WordCamp Speaker Selection (for content AND diversity)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/12/summary-of-the-q2-community-team-role-updates/">Summary of the Q2 Community Team Role Updates</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/12/announcing-the-inaugural-cohort-of-the-wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program/">Announcing the Inaugural Cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/05/community-team-meeting-agenda-for-6-july-2023/">Community Team Meeting Agenda for 6 July, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/05/wcus-2023-contributor-day-help-needed/">WCUS 2023 Contributor Day: Help Needed!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/05/wcus-2023-contributor-day-what-should-we-work-on/">WCUS 2023 Contributor Day: What should we work on?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/03/incident-report-recent-cancelation-of-a-wordcamp/">Incident Report: Recent Cancelation of a WordCamp</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/07/03/wordcamp-mentors-july-check-in/">WordCamp Mentors’ July check-in!</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/a-week-in-core-july-10-2023/">A Week in Core – July 10, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Phase 3 Ideations</h3>



<ul>
<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/03/real-time-collaboration/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Real-Time Collaboration</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/04/workflows/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Workflows</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/revisions/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Revisions</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/07/media-library/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Media Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/10/block-library/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Block Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/admin-design/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Admin Design</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/the-style-book-a-one-stop-shop-for-styling-block-themes/">The Style Book: a one-stop shop for styling block themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/navigating-the-block-editor-handbook/">Navigating the Block Editor Handbook</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/upgrading-the-site-editing-experience-with-custom-template-part-areas/">Upgrading the site-editing experience with custom template part areas</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/dev-chat-summary-july-12-2023-2/">Dev Chat Summary: July 12, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/12/developer-blog-editorial-meeting-06-june-2023/">Developer Blog Editorial Meeting – 06 July 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Design</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/07/03/design-share-jun-19-jun-30/">Design Share: Jun 19–Jun&nbsp;30</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/12/xpost-announcing-the-inaugural-cohort-of-the-wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program/">Contributor Mentorship Program!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/07/06/summary-for-docs-team-meeting-jul-04-2023/">Summary for Docs Team Meeting, Jul 04, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hosting"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting">Hosting</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/07/11/hosting-team-meeting-agenda-2023-07-12/">Hosting Team meeting agenda 2023-07-12</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/05/15/is-wordpress-compatible-with-php-8/">Is WordPress compatible with PHP 8?</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/20/make-team-dashboards/">Make Team Dashboards</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/15/triaging-open-issues-on-trac-for-make-teams/">Triaging open issues on Trac for Make Teams</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/13/new-filter-controls-discover-commercial-and-community-in-the-theme-and-plugin-directory/">New Filter Controls: Discover “Commercial” and “Community” in the Theme and Plugin Directory</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/11/linking-to-supporting-orgs/">Linking to Supporting Orgs</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/09/new-curation-filter-in-pattern-directory/">New curation filter in Pattern Directory</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mobile"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile">Mobile</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/04/11/contribute-to-the-future-of-the-wordpress-app/">Contribute to the Future of the WordPress App</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/mobile-team-update-july-12th/">Mobile Team Update – July 12th</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/12/community-meeting-recap-2023-07-11/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-07-11)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/10/last-week-openverse-2023-07-03-2023-07-10/">A week in Openverse: 2023-07-03 – 2023-07-10</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/05/priorities-meeting-recap-2023-07-05/">Priorities Meeting Recap 2023-07-05</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/07/05/community-meeting-recap-2023-07-04/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-07-04)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/11/performance-chat-summary-11-july-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 11 July 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/07/12/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-july-12-2023-0700-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – July 12, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>
</ul>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/06/28/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-june-28-2023-0700-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – June 28, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/07/13/proposal-for-establishing-a-make-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-deib-team-within-the-wordpress-community/">Proposal for Establishing a Make Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (“DEIB”) Team within the WordPress Community</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Support</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/06/wp-contributor-mentorship-program-support-team-edition/">WP Contributor Mentorship Program: Support team edition</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability">Sustainability</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/06/30/sustainability-chat-summary-june-30-2023/">Sustainability Chat Summary, June 30, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/10/test-team-update-10-july-2023/">Test Team Update: 10 July 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/07/12/themes-team-update-july-12-2023/">Themes team update July 12, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/07/13/themes-team-meeting-notes-july-11-2023/">Themes Team Meeting Notes –&nbsp;July 11, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/learn-wordpress-july-2023-newsletter/">Learn WordPress July 2023 Newsletter</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/10/training-team-2023-half-year-review/">Training Team 2023 Half Year Review</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/08/next-steps-for-github-updates/">Next steps for GitHub updates</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/08/announcement-updates-to-team-meeting-times/">Announcement: Updates to team meeting times</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/07/project-thread-learning-pathways-on-learn-wordpress/">Project Thread: Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/06/training-team-meeting-recap-4th-july-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap – 4th July 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/04/expertise-needed-learn-how-to-vet-content-topic-ideas-for-the-training-team/">Expertise needed: Learn how to vet content topic ideas for the Training Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/03/training-team-meeting-recap-for-june-27th-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap for June 27th, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/7-tips-to-improve-website-security/">7 Tips to improve website security</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/categories-vs-tags-whats-the-difference/">Categories vs. Tags: What’s the difference?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/debugging-in-wordpress/">Debugging in WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/designing-with-row-and-stack-blocks/">Designing with row and stack blocks</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=testing-wordpress-6-3">Testing WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=come-join-the-wordpress-training-team-4">Come join the WordPress Training Team!</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/developing-with-the-wordpress-rest-api/">Introduction to developing with the WordPress REST API</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordCamp Central</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-dhaka-2023-has-been-cancelled/">WordCamp Dhaka 2023 Has Been Cancelled</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-rochester-is-back/">WordCamp Rochester is Back!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/07/wordcamp-san-jose-2023-looking-for-speakers-and-sponsors/">WordCamp San José 2023: Looking For Speakers And Sponsors!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2023/06/wordcamp-finland-back-to-tampere-with-educational-insightful-and-thought-provoking-talks/">WordCamp Finland: back to Tampere with educational, insightful and thought-provoking talks</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.jquery.com/2023/05/11/jquery-3-7-0-released-staying-in-order/">jQuery 3.7.0</a></li>



<li><a href="https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-1">PHP 8.3.0 Alpha 3 available for testing</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1"><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-2">PHP 8.2.8 Released!</a></a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-07-06-3">PHP 8.1.21 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://262.ecma-international.org/">TC39</a></li>



<li><a href="http://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.8">Composer 2.5.8</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong>   <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>.  </p>



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<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:00:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:105:"Post Status: WordPress 6.3 Beta 2 • Help Test • WPDiversity • Plugin Team Next Phase • Mentorship";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:100:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-beta-2-help-test-wpdiversity-plugin-team-next-phase-mentorship/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:100:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-6-3-beta-2-help-test-wpdiversity-plugin-team-next-phase-mentorship/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21026:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (June 26, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">Release season is upon us as we approach WordPress 6.3&#8217;s August 8th release. Your help is needed testing the latest changes. Do you run or attend WordPress events and notice only one type of person is attending? What can you do to be a good ally to foster, promote, and support diversity and an inclusive&hellip; </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media-container"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container"><span class="kadence-dynamic-icon"></span></div></div></div></div><div class="kt-infobox-textcontent"><h2 class="kt-blocks-info-box-title">WP6.3b2 • Test • WPDiversity • Mentorship • Plugin Team Next Steps</h2><p class="kt-blocks-info-box-text">β <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a><br /><br /> &#x200d;  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a><br /><br />  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/22/attention-wordpress-event-organizers-this-important-workshop-on-july-20-2023-is-for-you/">Attention WordPress event organizers: This important workshop on July 20, 2023 is for you!</a><br /><br />  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a><br /><br /> &#x200d;  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/06/23/launch-your-wordpress-contributor-journey-through-the-mentorship-program-pilot/">Launch your WordPress Contributor Journey through the Mentorship Program Pilot</a><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/people-of-wordpress-allison-dye/">People of WordPress: Allison Dye</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/episode-58-a-new-wave-for-wordpress-events/">WP Briefing: Episode 58: A New Wave for WordPress Events</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-55 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-53 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/30/6-3-release-parties-schedule-and-hosts/">6.3 Release Parties Schedule and hosts</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/wordpress-6-3-beta-2/">WordPress 6.3 Beta 2</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/06/16/accessibility-team-meeting-notes-june-16-2023/">Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: June 16, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/29/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-june-28-2023/">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on June 28, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/22/attention-wordpress-event-organizers-this-important-workshop-on-july-20-2023-is-for-you/">Attention WordPress event organizers: This important workshop on July 20, 2023 is for you!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/21/meetup-organizer-newsletter-june-2023/">Meetup Organizer Newsletter: June 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/21/wceu-2023-community-table-recap/">WCEU 2023 Community Table Recap</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/19/next-generation-of-wordpress-events-updates/">Next Generation of WordPress Events: Updates</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-1-29-june/">What’s new in Gutenberg 16.1? (29 June)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/27/a-week-in-core-june-26-2023/">A Week in Core – June 26, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/the-style-book-a-one-stop-shop-for-styling-block-themes/">The Style Book: a one-stop shop for styling block themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/navigating-the-block-editor-handbook/">Navigating the Block Editor Handbook</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/upgrading-the-site-editing-experience-with-custom-template-part-areas/">Upgrading the site-editing experience with custom template part areas</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/27/dev-chat-summary-june-21-2023/">Dev Chat Summary: June 21, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/26/editor-chat-agenda-june-28th-2023/">Editor Chat Agenda: June 28th, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Design</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/06/06/design-share-may-22-jun-2/">Design Share: May 22–Jun 2</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/06/23/online-monthly-docs-team-contributor-day-june-27-2023/">Online monthly Docs Team Contributor Day June 27, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/06/23/summary-for-docs-team-meeting-june-20-2023/">Summary for Docs Team meeting, June 20, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hosting"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting">Hosting</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/06/28/hosting-team-meeting-agenda-2023-06-28/">Hosting Team meeting agenda 2023-06-28</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/05/15/is-wordpress-compatible-with-php-8/">Is WordPress compatible with PHP 8?</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/20/make-team-dashboards/">Make Team Dashboards</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/15/triaging-open-issues-on-trac-for-make-teams/">Triaging open issues on Trac for Make Teams</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/13/new-filter-controls-discover-commercial-and-community-in-the-theme-and-plugin-directory/">New Filter Controls: Discover “Commercial” and “Community” in the Theme and Plugin Directory</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/11/linking-to-supporting-orgs/">Linking to Supporting Orgs</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/09/new-curation-filter-in-pattern-directory/">New curation filter in Pattern Directory</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mobile"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile">Mobile</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/04/11/contribute-to-the-future-of-the-wordpress-app/">Contribute to the Future of the WordPress App</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/06/30/catalog-performance-testing-results/">Catalog Performance Testing Results</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/06/27/community-meeting-recap-2023-06-27/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-06-27)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/06/26/last-week-openverse-2023-06-19-2023-06-26/">A week in Openverse: 2023-06-19 – 2023-06-26</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/27/performance-chat-summary-27-june-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 27 June 2023</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/06/29/plugin-review-team-update-the-next-phase-begins/">Plugin Review Team Update: The next phase begins</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/06/28/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-june-28-2023-0700-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – June 28, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/06/23/launch-your-wordpress-contributor-journey-through-the-mentorship-program-pilot/">Launch your WordPress Contributor Journey through the Mentorship Program Pilot</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Support</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/06/wp-contributor-mentorship-program-support-team-edition/">WP Contributor Mentorship Program: Support team edition</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability">Sustainability</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/06/30/sustainability-chat-summary-june-30-2023/">Sustainability Chat Summary, June 30, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/27/help-test-wordpress-6-3/">Help Test WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/06/07/fse-program-testing-call-24-momery-makeover/">FSE Program Testing Call #24: Momery Makeover</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/06/28/themes-team-meeting-notes-june-27-2023/">Themes Team Meeting Notes – June 27, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/24/proposal-lets-actively-promote-the-learn-wordpress-platform-in-learn-wordpress-content/">Proposal: Let’s actively promote the Learn WordPress platform in Learn WordPress content</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/22/training-team-meeting-recap-20th-june-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap – 20th June 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/20/proposal-new-contributor-guide-program/">Proposal: New Contributor Guide Program</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/19/brainstorm-table-lead-wordcamp-us-2023-contributor-day/">Brainstorm &amp; Table Lead – WordCamp US 2023 Contributor Day</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/developing-for-multisite/">Developing for Multisite</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-start-using-wordpress-playground/">How to start using WordPress Playground</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/wpphotos-moderator-training/">WPPhotos Moderator Training</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/using-the-block-editor-tips-and-shortcuts-for-efficiency/">Using the block editor: Tips and shortcuts for efficiency</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/using-headings-for-accessibility-and-seo/">How to use headings for accessibility and&nbsp;SEO</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/advanced-multisite-management/">Advanced Multisite Management</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/fr-the-difference-between-reusable-blocks-block-patterns-templates-and-template-parts/">Différences entre blocs réutilisables, compositions de blocs, modèles et éléments de modèle</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=common-wordpress-apis-dashboard-widgets">Common WordPress APIs: Dashboard Widgets</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wp-dev-livestream-sendig-block-theme-8">WP dev livestream: Sendig block theme</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=introducing-domains-4">Introducing… Domains!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=introducing-domains-3">Introducing… Domains!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=tips-and-shortcuts-for-using-the-block-editor-streamlining-content-creation-apac">Tips and shortcuts for using the block editor &amp; streamlining content creation (APAC)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=tips-and-shortcuts-for-using-the-block-editor-streamlining-content-creation">Tips and shortcuts for using the block editor &amp; streamlining content creation</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=using-the-row-and-stack-blocks-apac">Using the row and stack blocks (APAC)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wp-dev-livestream-sendig-block-theme-7">WP dev livestream: Sendig block theme</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=custom-tables-in-wordpress">Custom tables in WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=developer-hours-exploring-editor-extensibility">Developer Hours: Exploring Editor Extensibility</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=hallway-hangout-lets-chat-about-wordpress-6-3-and-block-theming">Hallway Hangout: Let’s chat about WordPress 6.3 and block theming</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=the-wordpress-developer-quiz">The WordPress developer Quiz</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-can-chat-gpt-help-wordpress-developers-and-designers">How can Chat GPT help WordPress developers and designers?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-set-up-a-free-wordpress-test-website-and-explore-code-2">How to set up a free WordPress test website (and explore code!)</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/creating-a-4-page-business-website/">Creating a 4-page business website</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
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<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong>   <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>.  </p>



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<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:00:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"Post Status: The WP Agency Journey with Rob Cairns of Stunning Digital Marketing";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://poststatus.com/the-wp-agency-journey-with-rob-cairns-of-stunning-digital-marketing/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://poststatus.com/the-wp-agency-journey-with-rob-cairns-of-stunning-digital-marketing/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46702:"<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">

</div>







<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript">Transcript</a> ↓</p>



<p class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">In this episode, <a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a>, CEO of <a href="https://poststatus.com/">Post Status</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/RobCairns">Rob Cairns</a>, Founder, CEO, and Chief Creator of Amazing Ideas at <a href="https://stunningdigitalmarketing.com/">Stunning Digital Marketing</a>, discuss the importance of website security, client communication, and managing client expectations. They also talk about the need for businesses to treat their websites as valuable assets and allocate budgets for their maintenance and security. Websites have become an integral part of modern business operations, especially with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>



<p class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><strong>Top Takeaways:</strong></p>



<ul type="video" class="wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
<li><strong>Website Security and Budgeting</strong>: Businesses must prioritize website security and allocate appropriate budgets for maintenance and protection. Websites are now integral to modern business operations, and their value should be recognized and treated as essential as physical security measures.</li>



<li><strong>Effective Client Communication</strong>: Clear and proactive communication with clients is crucial. Agencies should manage client expectations, set boundaries, and communicate any limitations, such as response times during vacations or other periods of unavailability. Managing client communication helps build trust and ensures a smoother working relationship.</li>



<li><strong>Community Engagement and Personal Well-being</strong>: Engaging with the WordPress community and participating in events like WordCamps can be valuable for networking, knowledge sharing, and staying updated with industry trends. Additionally, individuals need to prioritize their own well-being and take care of their health.</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/a2-hosting">A2 Hosting</a></h3>



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<img width="752" height="470" src="https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/imageedit_1_6433774706-752x470.png" alt="A2 Hosting" class="wp-image-104073" />A2 Hosting
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-mentioned-in-the-show">  Mentioned in the show<strong>:</strong></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.lastpass.com/">LastPass</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/kathyzant?lang=en">Kathy</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li><a href="https://poststatus.com/">Post Status</a></li>



<li><a href="https://buffalo.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Buffalo</a></li>



<li><a href="https://montclair.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordPress Montclair</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/courtneyr_dev">Courtney Robertson</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.com/">WordPress</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter">  You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper">
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/RobCairns">Rob Cairns</a> (Founder, CEO, &amp; Chief Creator of Amazing Ideas, <a href="https://stunningdigitalmarketing.com/">Stunning Digital Marketing</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p class="eplus-wrapper has-background">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis.  <br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simplecast</a>, or <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>.  </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-transcript">Transcript</h2>



<p>Cory Miller (00:00:00) &#8211; All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Post Edits Draft. We&#8217;ve got another interview in our series on agency journeys. And I&#8217;m talking to a long time friend of mine, Rob Carnes, who has been very active in post. It&#8217;s been to a bunch of our meetups and I&#8217;m really excited to share his story today. So Rob, thanks for being on The Post podcast.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:00:21) &#8211; My pleasure, Corey. Glad to be here.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:00:24) &#8211; Well, Rob, let&#8217;s dive in. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your agency today. Name and what you do. What kind of work primarily you do for your clients.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:00:34) &#8211; Okay, So my name is Rob Cairns. I&#8217;m in the greater Toronto area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I should tell you, before I got into running an agency, I have a very tech heavy background which a lot of agency owners don&#8217;t have. So I come out of an enterprise healthcare environment, doing servers, doing all kinds of cool stuff to support one of Toronto&#8217;s biggest hospitals.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:00:58) &#8211; Before that I was actually an old time COBOL programmer. There&#8217;s probably a word that you haven&#8217;t heard in a long, long time, and I spent some time in the financial industry, so I&#8217;ve got a bit of a business background. And then I jumped into agency life because, you know, I always tell the story. I never planned to be in marketing because I had a marketing professor in school back in the 80s who came in the class, and her whole thing was, Oh, I&#8217;m good. I&#8217;m here because I want my summers off. And I said, I swore then in there I&#8217;d never be a marketer if you paid me money to. Well, I lied. So, yeah. And I run I run an agency that&#8217;s WordPress focused. A lot of it is WordPress security stuff right now and some builds and then a lot of email marketing and consulting these days. That&#8217;s kind of where I&#8217;m at.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:01:50) &#8211; Yeah. And what&#8217;s your agency name?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:01:53) &#8211; Stunning digital marketing.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:01:55) &#8211; And what&#8217;s the website for your.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:01:58) &#8211; Digital marketing is the agency site and digital marketing.info is like my Linktree site. It&#8217;s got links to everything I do on the web and where you can find me.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:02:09) &#8211; Excellent. Excellent. Well, I know as I&#8217;ve gotten to know you through some of the meetups, too, I hear more and more about the work you do, and it always impresses me. You&#8217;re like, Hey, is anybody worried about this particular update? And and I know you managed quite a few sites and it always I always like lean in when you talk about that because it&#8217;s at the heart of what a lot of agency work, particularly at post is that our agencies do is that beast of maintaining WordPress across multiple WordPress client sites. Well, great. Thank you for that. So tell me a little bit about how you got there. I heard a little preface of that, but I wanted to start out with where you are today. Um, and then talk about how you got there. That&#8217;s always the compelling part of these Journey series to me is what happened before.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:02:59) &#8211; So this is today and then what? What&#8217;s a little snippet of how what led up to where you are today?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:03:06) &#8211; So where I am today was kind of how I got there was us working in healthcare. I wasn&#8217;t happy, I&#8217;ll tell you that now. I was working probably 60 to 70 hours a week at the time. So this is going back 14 years ago was when we started and I was extremely unhappy and somebody said to me, So why don&#8217;t you just go? And I said, Well, I&#8217;ve been here 21 years, so if they want to get rid of me, it&#8217;s going to cost some lots of money to get rid of me. So let&#8217;s force the hand and see where it goes. Well, 14 years ago, my dad was sick with pancreatic cancer at the time he actually passed away July 8th, the anniversary that&#8217;s coming up. And they decided, knowing I was going to be taking some time off, they decided we need to we&#8217;re going to make some changes and you can go away.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:03:56) &#8211; And at that point, I was already building WordPress websites on the side. So I just kind of transitioned to what I was doing on the side full time. Now here&#8217;s where it got interesting. I decided really quickly only building the website, it&#8217;s only part of getting it out there. You still got a market that site and you got to do it properly. So I made a decision then and there. I was going to build a full stack marketing agency. I&#8217;ve taken some courses, a lot of courses. One of my mentors in this space is a gentleman by the name of Paul Tobey, who I&#8217;m founder of. Paul. Toby&#8217;s actually the father of Adrian Toby, the founder of Groundhog, who you know. So that&#8217;s.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:04:40) &#8211; Love.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:04:40) &#8211; Adrian Yeah, love Adrian, Love. His dad saw his dad in January, actually, and we sat in his house and listened to him play some jazz tunes for us where we were visiting and and then transitioned in and at one time was offering all kinds of services and then just realized some of these are just don&#8217;t want to do so I just kind of niche down and got out of what I didn&#8217;t want to do so.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:05:10) &#8211; Got you. So how long ago did you go? Full time with the business?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:05:16) &#8211; 14 years ago.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:05:18) &#8211; 14 years ago. Okay. That&#8217;s awesome. We were going strong about the same time.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:05:22) &#8211; Yeah, about same time. And you. And you and I connected, I think the first time about 14 years ago when I was in the headway community. And you were running the items community. And you&#8217;d be proud to know two of the products in my security stack back up by the in 19 security are still there to this day so.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:05:40) &#8211; Oh that&#8217;s fantastic to hear. Well, okay, So I&#8217;m really curious. Was there a point when you were like, doing this on the side? What was that juncture when you&#8217;re like, okay, I&#8217;m going to do this full time? A lot of the stories we hear, I hear in It&#8217;s My Own is some event. Something helped kind of catalyze the process to become a full time entrepreneur. And so I&#8217;m curious. So not happy, of course. And then, hey, I think you might have mentioned this just a second ago, but I want to make sure I&#8217;m clear on it.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:06:13) &#8211; So was there event that kind of like, okay, I&#8217;m doing this full time, this is the only thing I&#8217;m doing.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:06:18) &#8211; So my as I say, my dad was battling pancreatic cancer at the time. Oh, right. Yeah. I went on three weeks vacation after I was on the corporate project, number one, and amassing overtime like nothing. And I walked back in on a Monday morning. I got a call from the director&#8217;s secretary at 10 a.m. and say, Director won&#8217;t see you in a boardroom at 3:00. And the boardroom was not the normal boardroom for meetings. So I just kind of put my feet up and said, okay, I know how this day&#8217;s going to play out. Welcome back from vacation for me. And believe it or not, I actually shipped everything personal home from work at lunchtime in a cab because I saw the writing on the wall. I&#8217;d seen it on the wall for a while. Yeah. Then I get, um, I get called in and the director says, Do you know why you&#8217;re here? I said, So you&#8217;re going to let me go, so let&#8217;s just get it over with.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:07:16) &#8211; And the h.r. Manager turned to me and said, how do you how do you feel about all this? And my response at the time was, my lawyer will tell you at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Now you&#8217;re like no other comment.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:07:27) &#8211; Now at this time, you were already doing things on the side, though, right? Yeah, I think that&#8217;s important to note in the story because, you know, some of these events that happen, but you were already kind of testing the waters, building some kind of side hustle side gig on the side. So you didn&#8217;t just, you know, jump out into the ether. You had something kind of built up. Were you doing work for like client? I mean, friends? How did the the side gig kind of start parallel to that side gig?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:07:59) &#8211; Actually, it&#8217;s really interesting you ask that question. Being in tech, I&#8217;m like a resource in my family and you can appreciate that. So I did go to the let&#8217;s send an email to let&#8217;s ask the question.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:08:13) &#8211; And I actually got fed up with family, believe it or not, and I wrote a website at that time was HTML and said, by the way, here&#8217;s all the family pictures from the event last week because I was also the manager of all that digital stuff. And by the way, here&#8217;s links to all the questions you guys asked me and nobody&#8217;s allowed to ask me a question until you go to these links and and actually do your own homework. So that was my start into domains and all of that and web stuff. And the other thing that started it was this is going back to the days of dial and dialing Internet providers, if we remember those days. Yep. And trauma, they were a dime a dozen. So I used to switch providers, i.e. email services more than most people because I get fed up with one dial in provider and I cancel. I go to another one, I cancel, I go to another one, I cancel. So I finally said, Forget this, I&#8217;m going to register a domain which I still have to this day.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:09:15) &#8211; And then that was kind of my foray in. And then after doing static sites, I realized WordPress was the way to go and that&#8217;s what kind of opened the door.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:09:24) &#8211; So what was your introduction to WordPress? What kind of time period did you start using?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:09:28) &#8211; WordPress would have been about 16, 15 years ago. 16 years ago?</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:09:32) &#8211; Yeah, right. Right. In its first early heyday for sure. That&#8217;s about the same time I got started with WordPress, this cool platform that you didn&#8217;t have to manage with all these HTML top software and updated 100 pages you could do with one click. Essentially this concept of content management system was really, really crazy and awesome.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:09:53) &#8211; We all remember the famous five minute WordPress install where our our hosting providers didn&#8217;t have a one click installer like stop flashes or any of them. We had to do it ourselves, right?</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:10:05) &#8211; And yeah, we did it. I mean, I&#8217;m trying to remember when I did that, if it was FTP, you know, putting it on the server.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:10:14) &#8211; Yeah, I&#8217;m trying to think back about that. I use soft tactless quite a bit in the early days, but that was magical back then. If you think about it, it&#8217;s like I want the ability to do build a website and I don&#8217;t have to learn too many technical logistics. I remember googling. What does FTP mean? That was one of our first post that I themes because I was like, if I have this question, I bet you a bunch of other people have this question. But yeah, WordPress made it easy.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:10:40) &#8211; Yeah. I have to tell you a funny story. You appreciate being over it. I think so. I had a client years ago. It was Australian, one of my first big clients, and he didn&#8217;t see the spending the money on something like backup buddy. So the silly client came back to me and said, So write me the documentation process of tobacco and restore a website menu and document it out. And the story goes that the cost to him paying for that documentation at the time would have cost him more than a yearly license for backup money.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:11:12) &#8211; Well, even or not. So needless to say, he became a backup buddy. Pretty convert pretty quickly. Corey.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:11:20) &#8211; So. Well, okay, so you go full time with the agency starting to do on work. I know somewhere in there was like, Hey, there&#8217;s more to just the actual website build. There&#8217;s marketing different parts around the website. Um, as you look back, you know, 15 years now, what were some of the catalytic events that help you in your agency, personal professional, WordPress, all these things. If you look back where like 3 or 4 of the things that really made the difference in your agency to where you&#8217;re now, I know you&#8217;ve been doing this a long time. I know you&#8217;ve been able to have freedom of life to do different things in your life as part of the business part of WordPress, which is always the magic, I think, WordPress. But if you look back, what are those couple of things that kind of stand out?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:12:06) &#8211; Um, a couple of things.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:12:07) &#8211; One is I come from a family of entrepreneurs, so my mother is 78 years old, still alive and still selling houses, believe it or not. As a real estate agent, my aunt who passed away at 92, was one of the top real estate brokers for Century 21 in the Farmington, Detroit area for many, many years. First successful. I come from a family who&#8217;s done business on their own, so that helps. My father was a CFO for an insurance broker, so that helps. That helped install some money sense into me and some business sense into me. I&#8217;m also a lifelong learner. So you and I have talked over the years about how much reading I do or how much listening to other podcasts. I do believe it or not, my own podcast is not on my podcast player backdrop. I&#8217;m busy listening to everybody else&#8217;s because think you got to get a variety of point. And then kind of just people along the way. People like yourself. People like Paul. Toby Paul was a big catalyst for giving me credit and saying, you know, more than like 75% of the world.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:13:21) &#8211; Just go after it. So Paul was really good for me around mindset more than just technical stuff, so that was good. And then things like in my life recognizing and you and I have had this conversation about mental health challenges and the whole pearls around that. You&#8217;ve been through it. I&#8217;ve been through it. We&#8217;ve talked about it very candidly together over the years. That has helped. Am probably. 200% more mental health. Healthy today in my 50s and was in my 30s. I would say that, you know.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:13:58) &#8211; I think I want to say ditto. I think I think so.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:14:02) &#8211; And then surrounding yourself with the right people and people like yourself, people like post others group people like, you know, people outside of the post group, people you can go to and say, Hey, I just need an ear or, Hey, I&#8217;m stuck on something technical. I should know doing that. And then kind of. A big part of all this was deciding a number of years ago that I&#8217;m such a security junkie and I always was, even when I was in health care, and I need to dive into the security space and put my time and money there.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:14:38) &#8211; And that was a big part of it, too. And that&#8217;s how that came to birth. You mentioned, I imagine, websites as of yesterday&#8217;s count 418, believe it or not, just from an update in security perspective and growing by the day. So.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:14:53) &#8211; It&#8217;s it&#8217;s for sure become a thing in a good part of our industry and community that there&#8217;s agencies like yours and I&#8217;ve talked to a lot that that are recognized WordPress is awesome. There&#8217;s a lot of things that go into it as far as keeping those things updated. So somebody goes, Oh, I built it, you know, I built the baseball field, Field of Dreams. It&#8217;s there. Cool. Everybody&#8217;s going to come to it. There&#8217;s two sides of the coin that&#8217;s really interesting with your story. One is that updates security. Part of it got to keep the field maintained. The other side is the marketing part. I found this fascinating because you&#8217;ve got this to blend of marketing and the really the maintenance said that includes this big topic called security.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:15:37) &#8211; Yep, it&#8217;s true. And like one of the biggest things I think agency owners don&#8217;t do well is they don&#8217;t manage their own mailing lists, let alone their client mailing lists. And email marketing has become one of my strengths over the years and think that is a big deal because the only thing you really own is your website. In your mailing list. Everything is kind of what we call rented land or other people&#8217;s land in the rules change by the day and it gets to be awful.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:16:07) &#8211; So yeah, yeah, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s interesting. I&#8217;ve talked to a lot of people. I think a lot of the WordPress community saw one thing from my work at things, but I go, you know, one want to know the key to what we built. There&#8217;s a lot of keys, right? But one of the big keys, especially marketing, was email marketing. And I love how you said website, what you really own, the website and email address. You don&#8217;t even own the rankings. You got to keep working on those things.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:16:32) &#8211; You got to you don&#8217;t even necessarily on the traffic. You got to keep working on those things. But when you have the what click for me with email marketing, was this old school, now old school concept of direct marketing when people used to go door to door and still do of course, to sell something to that person directly. And I think that was when it clicked for me is email is direct marketing where I don&#8217;t control the algorithms and whatever tech billionaire is going to buy another of the social media platforms. But if I consistently build I was actually talking to entrepreneur last week about this, just she&#8217;s just getting started with the physical product. And I said, Hey, you know, all the jazz and the sexiness is out on the social media platforms. However, it&#8217;s a great way to get started, push them, funnel them into an email where you can still to date in 2023, directly market. It still works, but so many are adverse to it or don&#8217;t do the work to keep up their keep up, grow, maintain their email lists and use them properly.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:17:37) &#8211; And to segment them properly. Mean the big issue is. So I&#8217;ll give you an example. I have an email list that&#8217;s running about 7500 active right now. I&#8217;ve probably got, if you count people have an open stuff in like the last 60 days and probably closer to 1200. So the key is not to send emails to your host, send them to the 7500 that are active and then every six months touch base with the other people once in a while, like because honestly, that&#8217;s waste of time and money. Like don&#8217;t put your emphasis there, but you segment your list and figure out what people want from you and who&#8217;s going to open stuff. And as a result, on that 7500, I run an open rate of about listeners about 62% on a regular basis. Which is incredible.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:18:29) &#8211; Yeah, indeed. And it all takes work. Websites, take work, emails take a work to properly do it well. So. So you know, a couple of the things I&#8217;m interested in. The last 15 years or so you&#8217;ve been doing, this is what you&#8217;ve seen kind of transition the evolution of WordPress you know, from and websites within that.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:18:53) &#8211; So you know how WordPress has gone in the last 15 years. Where do you think it is now? Where do you think it&#8217;s going in the future, what your clients are seeing and value in as part of having a great web presence? And I&#8217;m curious your thoughts on those two things. So the underlying technology has grown 15 years. We just celebrated 20th anniversary of WordPress, which is just fascinating to me. Um, and then, you know, this, this changing perception, I think growing, valuing perception of websites, the value of having a WordPress type website.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:19:29) &#8211; So there&#8217;s a couple of things. When we all started with WordPress, you and I, it was basically a blogging platform and now we&#8217;re building these whole robust membership sites, e-commerce sites, we&#8217;re building all this stuff and it&#8217;s incredible. And people say, Oh, why don&#8217;t you go to an e-commerce platform? Well, I have to tell you, I picked up the paper today, this morning before we jumped on this call. Corey and Shopify, who we all know is one of the big e-commerce products, is in trouble with the Canadian government because they refuse to hand over shopping records to the tax people so they can go after individuals.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:20:10) &#8211; And the cool thing about WordPress is that&#8217;s all self contained. So as we get into this privacy era, everything&#8217;s within your dashboard and you can even buy marketing solutions like Groundhog Adrian, Toby or Fluent CRM, another one that resides right inside that dashboard which protects your privacy and puts you in control. And I think that&#8217;s the whole thing about WordPress. The other big thing I&#8217;ve seen is a big change in the hosting space. And you&#8217;ll agree with me, um, what&#8217;s old is good and what hosting companies have reinvented themselves in the last while. And two I like to point out to is one over at New fold and we both of us have a mutual friend there in the name of Dave Ryan at Neufeld. So Dave and his team, I&#8217;ve had many dealings with them. They were the old endurance and they came out of that. And they&#8217;re trying to reinvent themselves by running around and buying plug ins like they bought Yoast and they bought it and doing things like that. And then important for new fold, they&#8217;ve become more community aware than they&#8217;ve ever become before.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:21:19) &#8211; So this was not the idea of eight years ago or nine years ago. I can guarantee that. And they&#8217;ve changed. And then you take somebody like her friends up at GoDaddy and, you know, I know that team pretty well for work I&#8217;ve done, and they&#8217;ve reinvented themselves. They&#8217;ve come out of the ashes of the Danica Patrick ads, as we call them. Remember those? Could you see a sexist ad like that flying in today&#8217;s society? I don&#8217;t think so.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:21:50) &#8211; No. We&#8217;ve evolved past that for sure for for better.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:21:55) &#8211; But they&#8217;ve also reinvented themselves. And then even in a hosting space, you got companies like Liquid Web and WP Engine and Cloud, and then you&#8217;ve got companies that were leaders that have kind of dropped off. And a company I throw into a group like that is Siteground think, you know. Ten years. Five years ago, they were great. And then somethings kind of happened. So things go cyclical. Um, in terms of the technology more, it&#8217;s worth mentioning where we&#8217;ve gone.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:22:25) &#8211; So we&#8217;ve gone from coding and WordPress with plugins to page builders and your team and I think this is one of the first with, with your builder product, right? And themes to, to build sites. And then we got into things like headway, which we all know the story of what happened there and they were part of their problems. They were miles ahead of their time and just not adapted. And then we got into the traditional page builders like the Beaver Builders, the Yeah, Elementor, the bricks, that kind of stuff, which is prominent now. And now we&#8217;re headed to this magical thing called blocks. And you know, there&#8217;s a couple block ecosystems. The one I use is cadence. I&#8217;ve been all in with Cadence for a couple of years now. So there&#8217;s evolution, that spot. And I think we&#8217;re we&#8217;re starting to see more is WordPress is becoming more than just a publishing platform. Automattic owns Tumblr, Automattic owns pocket casts, one of the biggest pocket podcast players out there. They own the day One journal, which is a journaling app, um, would encourage anybody out there who needs a journaling product to go get it.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:23:45) &#8211; It&#8217;s worth every penny of it, like honestly. So they&#8217;re trying to democratize that whole, the whole solution. So, so a lot that&#8217;s gone on in 20. Um.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:23:59) &#8211; Yeah, there&#8217;s a whole history there and everything you talked about. I think what stands out was the hosting industry. It&#8217;s definitely evolved, grown and a lot of money has come into WordPress hosting space in particular. You talk about new Fold in Endurance, for instance, like it&#8217;s turned over, been sold and bought so many acquisitions in the space and for good reason, because WordPress is a great platform for millions of people to build their website on. So but you know, there&#8217;s a trend there too, which is you talked about the reinvention and kind of coming out of stuff. What I&#8217;ve seen in 15 years plus years or so is. Yeah, it starts out good. Trying to claim her to get new customers. New clients, show them, you know, help them with their stuff. And it seems a lot of cyclical ness of like, okay, they reached this point where now they&#8217;re trying to really all the hosting companies, I would say, should make a profit.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:25:02) &#8211; But then there&#8217;s a swath that like, okay, increasingly trying to make it more profitable to understand part of business. However, then you see customer service and support start to kind of fade with some of that and then you get this whole, okay, they&#8217;re going down and then going up. And I&#8217;ve I&#8217;m not going to name the names, but there&#8217;s a lot there where you see the cyclical up and down of that hosting side, which isn&#8217;t always healthy for WordPress either. I get it as a business part. What they need to do for their shareholders, partners, all that kind of stuff. But it&#8217;s definitely changed from like 2008 when I think this was on a shared hosting plan for like, I don&#8217;t know, $5 a month or $10 a month at like HostGator. And it&#8217;s I&#8217;ve kind of bemoaned it some because what the effect now is the experience for the WordPress user, those people that are your clients that are using their website and there&#8217;s that up and down. They&#8217;ve had to ride some of that and it&#8217;s always not good thing for the health of the ecosystem.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:26:06) &#8211; It&#8217;s true. And the other thing I should add to to this discussion is I think the team up at Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, has been much more receptive to comments, suggestions than ever before. And I know some people don&#8217;t feel that way, but I think we&#8217;re in really good hands with Josepha being the executive director of the WordPress project, you know, and things like that. And I know on the Gutenberg side I&#8217;ve gotten to know Matthias Venture, The Gutenberg lead a little bit and, and people like our friends Polly Hack or people like Jessica Frick over at Percival, which is an automatic company. People like that have put us in pretty good hands, frankly.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:26:52) &#8211; Yeah, my personal opinion is automatic has long term commitment to the industry and I&#8217;m really proud to have them as sponsors a lot of automatic and post status and for good reason. But you know a long term commitment to like they have had the opportunity for many years to really really monetize what WordPress is and have held back. I think this is only my personal opinion.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:27:18) &#8211; No facts really share other&#8217;s leadership there. But get go have had a long term commitment because they believe in open source, they believe in the open web and the ecosystem is healthy. When you have a diverse set of people offering services and products to that, so you get great performance. Obviously they know WordPress inside and out and then the support and those are the things that have that kind of wane over time. In any hosting company that I&#8217;ve been, that I&#8217;ve been around, I&#8217;ve had I&#8217;ve been a customer at many of the ones you talked about had clients and friends at many of the ones that you talked about. And but the consistency, I think, is what matters overall. So I agree with you. Agree. Um, okay. So we&#8217;ve talked about a whole lot of stuff. Now I want to talk I want to ask this specific question related to your clients. What are you hearing from your clients about WordPress, how they&#8217;re using their websites? Because I love talking to our agency owners because tip of the spear for me is the people out there doing the work.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:28:20) &#8211; For those people using WordPress, they might not even know or care that there&#8217;s this open source platform underneath it all. But what are you hearing from your clients about what WordPress and working with the websites?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:28:32) &#8211; Yeah, there&#8217;s a couple things. I don&#8217;t think my clients care what&#8217;s under the hood. So by that mean they don&#8217;t care if it&#8217;s a WordPress site, if it&#8217;s a custom site, if it&#8217;s something else, as long as it gives them the results they want. So one of the things I&#8217;ve been pushing in the community for the last ten years is don&#8217;t sell the solution. Sell what it brings you. I&#8217;m a big one. Outcome or something, not how you get there. And if anybody doesn&#8217;t believe that, I suggest you go look up a guy by the name of Simon Sinek. Start with why is his book and find his Ted talk and watch it and watch it again. So sell the the what you get out of it. So that&#8217;s the first one. I also think clients hate to say are dropping the security ball big time right now.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:29:21) &#8211; I&#8217;m working on a site right now where the client couldn&#8217;t find their backup that they were sending to a cloud drive for six days and they took them six days to find out where they put that backup. So one of the things I find with my clients is you have to help them manage their digital assets or their digital stuff, and even more so in small businesses. What happens if the business owner gets run over by a truck tomorrow? What happens if he dies tomorrow? Do you have a succession plan for your business? Do you know how to handle that? Most people don&#8217;t. So that&#8217;s a problem. And then the other thing is, I think a lot of people flock to WordPress because frankly, what are we powering now? 45% in the Internet, 50% somewhere in there. And I think that alone is a selling thing. That&#8217;s attraction. Thing is WordPress is open source. It can&#8217;t be secure the security holes every month. Well, guess what? Microsoft Windows plugs security holes on the first Tuesday every month called Patch Tuesday.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:30:27) &#8211; And the whole business world runs on Windows more than that. Right. And they&#8217;re still plugging holes. Security is a trust factor, not a it happened or it didn&#8217;t happen.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:30:37) &#8211; So I like that because security is a non-essential part of the digital our digital world, particularly our Internet, it&#8217;s a part of it. The real question is how are the people or companies behind that making sure it&#8217;s always secure. I remember talking to a security expert. I don&#8217;t know, it&#8217;s been eight years now and they said it&#8217;s not a matter this is one that just all they do is security and they go, it&#8217;s not a matter of if we&#8217;ll get hacked, it&#8217;s when and what we&#8217;re doing continually. And I go, that&#8217;s part of the digital age. That&#8217;s where we&#8217;re at. So I love that emphasis from your point. It&#8217;s just not when it&#8217;s if. And what are you doing in the meantime to help proactively do that?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:31:19) &#8211; And I&#8217;ll take that one more. Corey I have a saying in my business that&#8217;s not if you&#8217;ll be hacked, it&#8217;s when you&#8217;ll be hacked.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:31:25) &#8211; And how do you recover where I take it? So I kind of look at this mess I&#8217;ve been dealing with, and a big part of the problem was the client didn&#8217;t have a site updated, the client didn&#8217;t have the PHP version updated, the client couldn&#8217;t find the backup. You see where this is going? Yep. And it&#8217;s we got to take care of those assets and we got to treat them like the they&#8217;re important. So that&#8217;s that.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:31:52) &#8211; Just like you would lock your car or your house at night or your car if you&#8217;re driving into the supermarket or the grocery store, whatever that is, you&#8217;d lock your car because, you know, you do those things. We don&#8217;t even think about those things. They&#8217;re so embedded now and we need to be doing that. I love this message. We need to be doing that with our digital assets.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:32:11) &#8211; We&#8217;re a mutual friend of ours. You know, Kathy&#8217;s N over at K very well. And I turned to Cathy in January and said, I&#8217;m going to make you a prediction.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:32:20) &#8211; And she said, Oh, I don&#8217;t like your predictions are usually right. And I said, I&#8217;m going to declare 2023 as a year of the vulnerability, the first week of January. And that was coming out of the whole LastPass debacle that happened. And we all know about that one. And sure enough, and I think it&#8217;s partially awareness, but I think there&#8217;s a multitude of factors and it&#8217;s kind of played out that way. The other thing I&#8217;m hearing from clients is clients don&#8217;t realize that websites have to have a budget attached to them for their business. So marketing budget and they say, Oh, we do it in house. And I say, okay, so what&#8217;s your hourly rate worth? Oh, it&#8217;s worth $40 an hour. How many hours a month do you do? Oh five. So your marketing budget is 40 times five. So that&#8217;s the other thing. Business has got to take this stuff seriously and start to budget for.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:33:17) &#8211; I love that Social Security and then budget, and that&#8217;s the mindset.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:33:21) &#8211; So, you know, a lot of the conversations I&#8217;ve been having is the recognition from clients that their website is not just valuable, it&#8217;s an integral part of how they do business. Covid accelerated a lot of that. I think it&#8217;s like, Hey, we got so many physical location, bricks and mortar type businesses realizing when you can&#8217;t actually see a person face to face. So I have two way of a way to be able to do business. So I love that it&#8217;s integral. So security, part of life budgeting, you need to budget for it just like you would any other part of your businesses in the essential part of your business. And so many of the agency owners have talked to here at Post Status, they the clients are recognizing that it&#8217;s in some of the instances, I would say more like a B2B. They see it&#8217;s at a very, very valuable part of their overall sales strategy and they value it deeply. Some run their whole operations or half operations, you know, and items and post those two, we run our whole operation through online space so it feels foreign.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:34:26) &#8211; But that&#8217;s not the way business is traditionally. It&#8217;s, you know, you go to a store, you travel, you walk, you ride in a horse and buggy or a car to get to. Things have changed. And that seems like what I&#8217;m hearing, too, is that mindset needs a change of like this is all a part of business domains, websites, all the platforms you might be on, all as important as that door that opens up into your business.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:34:51) &#8211; 100% and then look at the criticality of it. So, for example, if you&#8217;re an e-commerce site that&#8217;s making 30,000 US a day profit, then you need a different level of support than somebody that&#8217;s got a brochure site that is out there just to be the face of their business. So you got to think about things like that, too. Very much so.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:35:12) &#8211; Okay, so security and budget. Anything else on your mind about when you when you&#8217;re working with clients and how they&#8217;re valuing their websites? Any perspectives you have to share there too.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:35:22) &#8211; I think a lot of clients in this day and age are unrealistic and think that&#8217;s the world we live in. So it&#8217;s a very much an I want it now world. It&#8217;s I want it yesterday. There&#8217;s no patience out there like to tell you I don&#8217;t think clients are any different.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:35:39) &#8211; So. Yeah. So it&#8217;s the physical part of business, which I have a friend that has a restaurant supply business and I understand how like when you&#8217;re, you know, stove or cooktop is down, they can&#8217;t sell. And then now that okay, got to have it now. And that service side is pretty intense for them. I can see that now being applied to the business is where they see it as essential. I want to say that&#8217;s a good part, but when it comes with some mindset change of okay, we need to be able to budget for that and pay for that and, and knowing like in the middle of the night or whatever it is to have that kind of service turnaround is not always possible or realistic.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:36:27) &#8211; And communication is a big part of it too. I don&#8217;t think some clients communicate well, don&#8217;t think some agencies communicate well. Like, for example, I&#8217;m going on vacation next Wednesday. Yay me, I&#8217;ve already sent out an email to my entire client was saying, By the way, the only thing I&#8217;ll deal with while I&#8217;m away is a website down issue. Everything else sits till I get home and just tell them upfront. Now, they might not like to hear it, but that&#8217;s you&#8217;re allowed to take time off. You&#8217;re allowed to recharge.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:36:58) &#8211; The good communication, getting ahead of it to manage those expectations? Yeah, absolutely vital. All right, Rob. Well, anything else you want to share that you&#8217;re excited about, that you&#8217;re working on or doing?</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:37:10) &#8211; I think the big thing is the security side of it. Think, think. We just got to be aware and and make sure you&#8217;re aware and if and if anybody needs help agencies otherwise reach out, be glad to help them and be involved in the community.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:37:25) &#8211; That&#8217;s a big part of what you and I do. You do not repost status. As you know, I co-manage a large LinkedIn group with Courtney Robertson. I&#8217;ve got a podcast that&#8217;s, you know, it&#8217;s good for business awareness, but it&#8217;s also good for the community too. So get involved. The community. Somebody if you can go to a word camp, go says the guy who&#8217;s got no time to go to work. Camps right now have not been to a five check by I missed word camp Buffalo Oh boy did I take stuff for not being on that one because that was a that&#8217;s an hour and a half away. I didn&#8217;t go to Montclair this weekend because, again, I&#8217;ve got conflicts. And the other thing is, look after you and your family and look after how you feel. Look after your health. Because if you don&#8217;t do that, you can&#8217;t run your business. So keep that.</p>



<p>Cory Miller (00:38:14) &#8211; Absolutely. Well, thanks, Rob, for being on post staff. Appreciate your work in the community and what you do with WordPress out in the world to our story.</p>



<p>Rob Cairns (00:38:22) &#8211; Thanks for having me.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:00:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Cory Miller";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"WPTavern: Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker Plugin Adds New Frontend Highlighting Feature Funded by NASA";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=147975";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:120:"https://wptavern.com/equalize-digital-accessibility-checker-plugin-adds-new-frontend-highlighting-feature-funded-by-nasa";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4865:"<p><a href="https://equalizedigital.com/">Equalize Digital</a>, a WordPress accessibility products and services company, has added a new frontend highlighting feature to its free <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/accessibility-checker/">accessibility checker plugin</a>, which is used to perform audits on self-hosted sites. The feature was <a href="https://equalizedigital.com/nasa-funds-development-of-front-end-highlighting-feature-for-equalize-digital-accessibility-checker/">funded</a> by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), through Equalize Digital&#8217;s consulting work on the new NASA websites.</p>



<p>NASA recently launched the <a href="https://beta.nasa.gov/">beta version</a> of its WordPress-powered flagship site, which WordCamp US attendees may hear about next week during the team&#8217;s sessions, including Friday&#8217;s keynote address: <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/session/friday-keynote/">For All Userkind: NASA Web Modernization and WordPress</a> and another presentation titled <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/session/hands-on-with-nasas-new-digital-platform/">Hands on with NASA’s new digital platform.</a></p>



<p>Equalize Digital was contracted to perform accessibility testing, user testing with screen reader users, and provide accessibility governance recommendations.</p>



<p>&#8220;As part of the contract for those services, they also contracted us to develop this feature for the plugin,&#8221; Equalize Digital CEO Amber Hinds said. &#8220;They have an enterprise license but we decided in collaboration with them that we would make it a feature in the free plugin so everyone could benefit, not a paid-only feature.</p>



<p>&#8220;They were actually really interested in that because it&#8217;s part of their mission to give back to humanity.&#8221;</p>



<p>Prior to developing the frontend highlighting feature, the accessibility checker plugin only had reports inside the post edit screen, with output that is nearly indecipherable for less technical users who are not accustomed to reading HTML.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1493" height="709" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/screenshot-3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-147988" />



<p>The new frontend highlighting feature makes the accessibility report&#8217;s output far more approachable for users who may not be developers. It puts a &#8220;view on page&#8221; link next to each issue found in the report, which brings users to the frontend where the element in question is highlighted with a dashed pink box. It also displays a panel that explains the issue in a way that is easier to understand as well as how to fix it.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1800" height="1053" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Accessibility-Checker-Front-End-Highlighting-on-NASA.png" alt="" class="wp-image-147987" />



<p>The report in the admin has been updated as well so that it&#8217;s easier to read. A new image column displays any images related to issues and the Actions column includes a &#8220;View on Page&#8221; link leading to the issue highlighted on the frontend. </p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="2640" height="1710" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/image-2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-147991" />



<p>Hind said her team is working on making the tool more friendly to content creators and not just a development tool. The plugin will stay on the NASA website to help their team as they add and edit content over time.</p>



<p>&#8220;In the future, we&#8217;re planning to add the ability to jump to the element in the block editor as well,&#8221; Hinds said. &#8220;(That&#8217;s slightly tricky because we scan the whole page, not just the content area so we have to exclude elements created by other parts of the editor or theme.)&#8221;</p>



<p>Thanks to NASA&#8217;s funding, the new frontend highlighting feature is available to users on the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/accessibility-checker/">free version of the plugin on WordPress.org</a>.</p>



<p>“Our goal is to make accessibility testing easier for every WordPress user, not just developers,” Equalize Digital CEO Amber Hinds said. “Accessibility Checker was developed to include a robust free version with this in mind. We want to make building websites that work for people with disabilities standard practice and were excited to work with NASA to make accessibility testing reports easier for non-developers to understand and take action on. Adding this feature to the free plugin was a no-brainer for us. We’re looking forward to seeing more WordPress website owners finding and fixing accessibility problems on their websites.”</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Aug 2023 21:00:14 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"Do The Woo Community: Woo AgencyChat Live with Ash Shaw and Mitch Callahan";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76066";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"https://dothewoo.io/woo-agencychat-live-ash-shaw-mitch-callahan/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:410:"<p>Join Ash Shaw from LightSpeed and Mitch Callahan from Saucal as they share insights from their WooCommerce agencies. </p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woo-agencychat-live-ash-shaw-mitch-callahan/">Woo AgencyChat Live with Ash Shaw and Mitch Callahan</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Aug 2023 10:31:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"WPTavern: WordPress Community Summit Travel Fund Contributes $48K in Assistance for Attendees";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=147963";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-community-summit-travel-fund-contributes-48k-in-assistance-for-attendees";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2052:"<p>This year&#8217;s WordCamp US includes a Community Summit, an invitation-only contributor-focused event that will take place prior to the main conference on August 22-23, 2023, in National Harbor, Washington, DC. It will be the first summit in six years, since the last one was held in Paris, France in 2017.</p>



<p>Historically, the summit has offered contributors the rare opportunity to hold in-person discussions on important topics across teams. In order to ensure the gathering is diverse and inclusive, previous community summit organizers have included a travel assistance program to remove the financial barriers of attending.</p>



<p>The 2023 Community Summit travel fund is <a href="https://communitysummit.wordcamp.org/2023/about-the-community-summit-travel-fund/">providing $48,000 in travel assistance</a>, thanks to a group of sponsors that includes Automattic, A2 Hosting, Elementor, and Weglot. The funding will support 38 attendees with roundtrip transportation ($31K for 24 people) and hotel stays ($16,500 for 66 hotel nights for 22 people).</p>



<p>Attendees have been reminded about the <a href="https://communitysummit.wordcamp.org/2023/non-attribution/">non-attribution guideline</a> which enables the event to offer a safe and inclusive environment for collaboration where comments are not attributed to specific individuals. Discussions, photographs, recaps, and summaries can be shared as long as they abide by the non-attribution guideline. </p>



<p>The <a href="https://communitysummit.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/">schedule</a> has been published, featuring 26 discussion topics. Contributors will have dedicated sessions to discuss the criteria for delaying the upgrade of foundational tech, understanding contributor leadership roles, refining Five for the Future for a robust WordPress community, accessibility in the WordPress project, open source participation in global legislation, backwards compatibility in Gutenberg, among other interesting topics that lend themselves to cross-team collaboration.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 18 Aug 2023 04:02:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:48:"WpOrg\Requests\Utility\CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:8:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Wed, 06 Sep 2023 10:48:54 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Wed, 06 Sep 2023 10:45:29 GMT";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:16:"content-encoding";s:4:"gzip";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 7";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20211220193300";}