Youth in WordPress

Allie Nimmons:
Hey there, Topher. How are you today?

Topher DeRosia:
I’m doing super great, super great day here in Michigan. Nice. But Christmas lights are up and it’s happy.

Allie Nimmons:
Oh, yay. Yeah, it’s great. Here in Austin today, it’s like super foggy, which makes me think of like London at Christmas time or something. Um, oh yeah. And we put up B Christmas lights this weekend, too, so it’s definitely feeling like the holidays.

Topher DeRosia:
Gotcha.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Well, today I’m super excited to talk to you and I definitely wanted to talk to you specifically about this topic, and we’ll get, uh, into that why in like a second. Um, but today we’re talking about young people in WordPress, um, as developers, as community members, all of those sorts of things. Mm-hmm. , I started being active in this community when I was about 26 years old. I’m 30 now, and I am by far one of the youngest people that I know of who is very active in the community and has been mm-hmm. working in the community in various capacities for a while. Most of the people that I know are older than me. And, you know, it’s can be a joke sometimes and it can be funny sometimes , but it’s just, it’s just kind of a fact. Most of my friends in the community are older than me, some of whom are old enough to be my parents.

And it’s great for me because it means I have all these really experienced mentors and people who are just wiser than me and have had more professional experience than me and have had more life experience than me that I can learn from, which is fantastic. But a lot of times I, when I think about it, it makes me a little bit bummed because I feel like my generation, the millennial generation, um, was brought up with this mentality, particularly as we were going into college or entering the workforce that tech and software is like where the future is, and those are the jobs you need to get. Um, and we are the first generation to grow up with the internet as a part of our, you know, our public consciousness. Right? Like, yeah, I remember a time before the internet, but it totally shaped my life and who I am and how I interact with the world.

And so it always bums me out a little bit when I think about how few young people we actually have in this community. Um, and I wanted to talk to you about this because two of the young people that I do know who to some degree are active in this community, maybe not so much anymore in the last few years, but, um, are your daughters who are younger mm-hmm. than me. They’re both in their twenties now. Um, yep. So given that you have these two daughters who are somewhat active in the community, and you’ve been active in this community yourself for quite a while, um, I was curious, why, why do you think we don’t have a large active thriving community of 20 somethings active in WordPress right now?

Topher DeRosia:
I think to a large extent it’s because parents aren’t bringing their kids to work camp or taking ’em to meet up or things like that. Um, my kids are heavily involved because we took them to work Camp Chicago when they were in their young teens, and that single event laid the foundation for, for everything after, because even if they didn’t take part nearly as much as we did, they knew what we were doing and they knew who we were doing it with. So we’d say, yeah. Do you remember Michelle, whom you met in Chicago? She lives in Minneapolis. Oh, yeah, I know Michelle. I still talk to her on, on instant messenger or whatever. We’re like, oh, oh, you have your own friends in the N Word press. Um, the, the young people I do know in WordPress mostly found their way there without their parents.

And in, in a lot of cases, their parents have no idea what they’re doing. They’re just hoping that it’s not drugs. , and, and, and they’re happy that their kids are finding, you know, a good safe place to be. Um, as I, I mentioned before we get connected that I’ve been thinking about this and there’s been a lot of, in WordPress, there’s been a lot of comparisons to, to the WordPress community and a church, and of course a lot of, uh, recoil from that because it’s not a church, but there’s that, there’s that community bonding that a lot of people find in their churches also. And so I, I looked at all the churches I’ve been to in my life, and even on Sunday morning, there’s just tons of kids tearing around after church and, you know, getting in trouble and having a wonderful time because their parents are, bring them and they do not care about church. ,

(05:09)
An eight year old boy could not care less about church when he’s there. He’s having a time of his life playing with his friends and having a great time. And it’s when they grow up and, and become more adult that they start thinking, oh, what, why are we here? You know, what’s going on over there with the adults? What’s at the big table? And I think if more people brought their kids to work camp and meetups and things like that, the exact same thing would happen. The kids would ignore the grownups until they got to a certain age and they’d start thinking, Hey, what’s going on here? What’s, can I, can I get in on this too? And there was a lot of adult mentorship for my kids in the WordPress community. They have many, many friends who are adults and have helped them find jobs, figure out what they wanna do in life. Mm-hmm. , um, just be there and just, just be wonderful mentors. And I, I think that would happen as well if kids started coming to work camps and meetups, they’d get to know their parents friends and, and there’d be a lot of opportunities there. Yeah. Um,

Allie Nimmons:
And it’s weird to think, it is very weird for me to think that hopefully I am one of those people to your kids, um mm-hmm. , I’ve tried to be

Topher DeRosia:
Very much You are, yeah.

Allie Nimmons:
I remember when I was growing up being around my mom’s work friends. My mom worked in, uh, theater and the performing arts for my whole childhood. And that was our thing as she was a single mom with a kid. And she, I was always there with her. I was under the production table during rehearsals and . Yep. You know, um, board meetings, I would, you know, hang out in someone’s living room while they had a board meeting in the dining room. And, you know, as I got older, I became more and more interested in actually being involved. And it’s, it was totally the thing that you were, you were talking about. And, um, so yeah, it’s, it’s a weird full circle thing for me to think that I’m that to someone else. And it’s, it’s really cool. Yeah. Um, what I find interesting about your kids is that, as far as I know, they’re not interested in software. They’re not interested in writing code,

Topher DeRosia:
Not, not even a little bit

Allie Nimmons:
. Yeah. And I wonder, like, I feel like so much of the rhetoric and the, the mantra around bringing young people, and even when I say young b you know, we’re talking about kids or we were just talking about kids, and when I’m thinking of young people, I’m thinking of, you know, fresh outta college. Right. So much of that, that mantra is about, um, going to a bootcamp and learning how to code and, you know, all of this kind of stuff. Right. Um, and I wonder if that is a limiting part of our narrative, um, because then we’re not creating pathways for people like your kids who are, uh, fantastic community members, but not interested in writing code. What do you think about that?

Topher DeRosia:
Right. Um, yeah, I think that’s absolutely true. Um, it’s word pressure’s getting a lot better at it, but it’s, it’s a long standing problem that when you say, oh, I build webpages, oh, you’re a developer. And even, even the designers get pushed out some there. And, uh, it, it’s, yeah, there needs to be more, more communication around the idea that there’s more to it. Um, I liken it too. Uh, you look at any WordPress agency, they’re not all developers. There are accountants, there are lawyers, you know, there are every, it’s a business. Every part of a business is needed in that. And if you wanna be part of the WordPress community, you can be mm-hmm. along with whatever it is you do for a living.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. And it, I think a lot about the, the way that we are in this community sometimes. I mean, when you, when you brought up the church thing, it made me think about, um, you know, and this is, this is not any disparaging statement against people who go to church on a regular basis, but WordPress has also been called a cult before. Oh, yeah. And there are churches that have been called cults before and Absolutely. You know, that was kind of the first, uh, attachment that I made when you said that. Um, and I do think that we have this habit maybe of wanting to stick to the way that things have been traditionally done. Right. We, and we Yeah. Kind of tr put more trust and more value in the people who have been here longer and the people who have, you know, put their time in and so on. And I feel like to a degree that can create an unwelcoming environment for a young person who’s like, well, why do we have to do things that way? Why can’t we, we do things a different way? Um, and if you the

Topher DeRosia:
Same reviews in all teens Rebel at Church

Allie Nimmons:
. Yeah. It’s, it’s exactly. And I feel like it says, you know, well, we’re not interested in, um, revolutionizing anything. Um, we, we were gonna do things the way that they are because that’s the way they’ve always been done. And to a younger person who is learning and bringing new ideas to the table, that’s not an attractive environment to be in. Um, yeah. And so I wonder, you know, how much does the community need to change for young people to find this community more attractive? Because I think that so many younger people that I like encounter on Twitter mm-hmm. who are in the software world, um, they find WordPress boring because Yeah. It’s not new and sexy and it’s kind of a thing of like, okay, well, does it need to be new and sexy or do we have a marketing issue? Like what’s the, what’s the problem here? You know? Yeah.

Topher DeRosia:
It’s like getting into school bus design, , it’s, it’s been done. You know, there’s not a whole lot more there.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Um, but, you know, I don’t know. I think it’s, I think it’s interesting and, you know, for a long time we had, or maybe not for a very long time, but for a period of time we had kids camps. Right. Kids Yes. Were camps. And I always thought that that was such an interesting idea that we had kids camps, but we didn’t have like a college pipeline camp. We didn’t have Oh, yeah. You know, a camp that was for that in between, which to me seemed

Topher DeRosia:
Like a career fair.

Allie Nimmons:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Like that’s would seem like so much more like low hanging fruit, right. Of these young people who are interested in websites and interested in building things, maybe interested in marketing or interested in graphic design or whatever. Um, and that we don’t speak to them, you know? Right.

Topher DeRosia:
Yep. So yeah, that’s really, that’s a really good point.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.

Topher DeRosia:
Um, so go ahead. I, I wanna, I wanna pivot back to something I started with earlier, cuz um, it got big and, and exciting to me. Um, I was thinking about my experiences of, of 20 minutes after church gets out and 85 kids are turning around screaming and comparing that to Word Camp. What, what would a word camp be like if everyone brought their kids? And my first thought was, well that would never work

Allie Nimmons:
,

Topher DeRosia:
Because those kids aren’t gonna sit with their parents in sessions. Those parents aren’t gonna have time to sit in the hall and talk and, and get good deep things done. So then I thought, well, why does it work at church? Well, it’s because we have Sunday School, which is effectively daycare.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.

Topher DeRosia:
And there are a lot of camps that have daycare, but I think it’s wildly underused. I mean, there’s like 10 kids in there for a camp of 500 people. Yeah. If, if everybody brought their kids to Word Camp and there was a system, a network in, in place to keep those kids happy and safe all day long and even let their parents go out late at night and go to parties mm-hmm. , I, I, I don’t know how that would work, , but I think at some point it would, it would dramatically increase the number of kids coming into WordPress as they, they grow up and they don’t want to hang around with the little kids anymore. They want to go with mom and dad to wherever they’re going.

Allie Nimmons:
And you know, that’s, the church thing is a really interesting analogy as well because, you know, as you’re talking I’m thinking like, yeah, what, you know, what is the difference? Why doesn’t it work the same? And I think one of the reasons is that church, going to church for most people Right. Who go is a regular weekly, um, commitment mm-hmm.

Topher DeRosia:
.

Allie Nimmons:
Yep. Going to a word camp is special, you know, it happens once a year, you know, maybe depending on, you know, if you’re going to your local one, if you’re traveling, there’s gonna be an expense with that. Um, and I think, you know, like a, like a lot of things in the community, it might that that system Right. Of like, how do we get more kids involved that might need to start with meetups instead of Word camps.

Topher DeRosia:
Yeah. As you were saying that, I was thinking that, cuz then you’ve got, you’ve got, uh, five groups of parents and maybe 10 or 15 kids mm-hmm. and that’s way more manageable for an hour or two.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. And those kids are gonna see each other more frequently. Right. Whereas yes. You know, if, if you take your kid to a Word camp this year, I mean, to a kid a year is 10 adult years. Right. . Yeah. So if you’re having them see those other kids on a much more regular basis in the same location and things like that, I think that creates a lot more of that sense of community and they remember those kids and they can build that friendship with those kids. Um, and then, you know, the word camp would be a, a super special event. Um, yeah. But yeah, I, I feel like the meetups is probably where that would need to start and, you know, for, for those 20 somethings as well. Um, because also with the meetups, it’s like, okay, if you are fresh outta college and you’re trying to figure out how to use WordPress for your first job, being able to go to a regular meetup and gain those skills is a lot more valuable in the long run than Yeah. Trying to get to as many word camps as you can possibly get to. Um, because also you don’t have the distractions of all of the other things that come with Word camps, right. Like sponsors and parties and, you know, all those other kinds of things. It’s, it’s pure unadulterated content, , um Yep. And community building. Um, and that’s why meetups are so important. That’s another side point to make here.

Topher DeRosia:
It really is.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Um,

Topher DeRosia:
And honestly, if the kids become better friends at the meetup once a month, the parents are gonna become better friends.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. Um,

Topher DeRosia:
And it becomes more community.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, totally. So yeah.

Topher DeRosia:
Children will save us all

Allie Nimmons:
. Yeah. I, I think about that a lot and the, the necessity for this next generation of word pressers to be supported somehow because we’re losing a lot of them to other open source communities. Um, yeah. And it, we have, we have to figure out a way to kind of build the programming that’s necessary for these age groups, but to also make sure that they understand the value of WordPress in general. Cause I think one of the, one of the things that keeps younger people from becoming super involved in WordPress is the thought of, um, you know, well, okay, if I’m trying to build a brand or something, if I’m trying to sell a product or start a business, I can do all of that on social media way faster.

Topher DeRosia:
Right.

Allie Nimmons:
What is the value of WordPress? And I don’t think that we market that enough of like owning all of your own content and the longevity of a website versus a social media platform and mm-hmm. , you know, all of those things. Those are kind of things I

Topher DeRosia:
Feel like long-term seo.

Allie Nimmons:
Exactly. Um, I think we kind of assume that the more experienced users just know that and that’s enough for us, you know?

Topher DeRosia:
Yep. Yeah. That’s good stuff. Yeah. I think it’s interesting that coming into this conversation, talking about young people in WordPress, I was thinking literally eight year olds. Yeah. And you were thinking 22 year olds.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. And that, that might be another issue, is like, we’re not all on the same page about who we need to be talking to. Um, yeah. To, and you know, to what extent, how much, where, why, you know, when, because I think that both of those age groups are really important. Um,

Topher DeRosia:
Yeah.

Allie Nimmons:
And I just, I, I think about, um, you know, a friend of mine when I lived in Florida, she would bring her kids to kids camp every year at our local Word camp. And Okay. After a few years, they didn’t wanna go anymore because they were bored because they already, they, they were really into word WordPress on their own mm-hmm. , and they were in that age group, you were talking about elementary school age and you know, in between camps they would build WordPress sites and mm-hmm. , after a few years, the kids camp content got boring for them and they didn’t wanna go. Um, and so, you know, the idea of scaling our content for kids to grow with them as their skills grow is another thing to think about.

Topher DeRosia:
Um, yeah.

Allie Nimmons:
But I think all of that stuff is really important.

Topher DeRosia:
I was just reflecting, I think you and I arrived at our two different perspectives based on how the WordPress community impacted us personally. Mm. Mm-hmm. , you were, you were impacted in your young twenties and for me, I was thoroughly an adult, but the impact that happened to my family, I think was perhaps greatest to my children in their young teens. Mm-hmm. . And so when you say young people, I think them Yeah. And when you think young people, you think you, when you were younger mm-hmm. , um, and so yeah, I don’t know where I’m going with that, but it seemed interesting. It seemed, it seemed particularly deep that, that we arrived at those two different perspectives based on our own experience

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah.

Topher DeRosia:
In the community.

Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely. I mean, this is a community built on people and I mean, that’s, that’s open source, right? Like yeah. We are all coming from our unique perspectives and our unique corners of the world, and it makes sense that, you know, maybe there are a lot of people in the community who don’t have kids or who don’t have kids who are interested in this kind of stuff, or started into WordPress when they were a lot older, and so don’t have the perspective to think about, um, or have the anecdotal kind of evidence to understand why bringing young people into WordPress is so important. Um, yeah. I mean, I just think in the long run, like in 20 years, who’s gonna be around to maintain this project? You know what I mean? Yeah. When all of, when all of the people who have been with the project for the last 15 years have kind of aged out of it or, you know, just decided to do other things

Topher DeRosia:
In 20 years, I will be more than 70.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. And are you still gonna be doing all the things you’re doing now? I mean, maybe, but I think it’s impossible. But you know, he,

Topher DeRosia:
He sitting in a chair reading stories at Word Camp to, to the kids

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. and, um, you know, I think there’s a, there’s a whole ageism conversation we can have, but like, is it realistic to think that we, the, the most used website building platform in the world is going to be run and maintained by 70 year olds, right? Yeah. Like, yeah, we don’t really, as far as I know, there is no long-term plan to keep those,

Topher DeRosia:
You know? Yeah. Even if they were 20 years after that, it’s not gonna be maintained by 90 year olds .

Allie Nimmons:
Exactly. You know, there’s, there’s kind of a, what do you wanna call it? Like, there’s a, there’s a timeframe we’re looking at here. Um, yeah. And I wonder, I mean, the kids camps were pretty pretty popular and I know that they were growing in popularity before the pandemic and the pandemic really kind of put the kibosh on the kids camps. I don’t know that there’s been very many of them at all since the pandemic. Um,

Topher DeRosia:
I don’t think there have been any,

Allie Nimmons:
I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t think so either. And that’s a problem. Like it’s a problem that we don’t have kids camps anymore. It’s a problem that we don’t, we’re not looking at kids as they’re coming out of college where, you know, high school kids who are really passionate about software. Those are all, those are all the people we need 20 years from now, and we’re not really speaking to them. Um, so yeah, I think, I think our, uh, our quote unquote solution of looking at meetups makes a lot of sense. Um, it really does. If I could snap my fingers and and solve the problem, it would be okay, we need to start having meetups that are really based off of looking at young people, right. Ages mm-hmm. eight to 24, um, yeah. And seeing how we can get them to go to church . Yeah. Get the Yeah.

Topher DeRosia:
Yeah. There’s a reason it’s called, uh, WordPress Evangelism

Allie Nimmons:
. Yeah. Right. Well, cool. Um, and

Topher DeRosia:
Yeah, just one more, one more little thing here. Totally. Um, grown Rapids where I live is a college town. Mm-hmm. , I think there are nine or 10 colleges in town mm-hmm. . And I don’t think we’ve ever, during a word camp, put up flyers on university saying, come learn a career.

Allie Nimmons:
Right.

Topher DeRosia:
We’ve occasionally done things like, come talk about WordPress and they’re like, uh, I’m an accountant, why would I care? Yeah. Well come, we need to change the, the, the talk and say, well, this is why you would come. Mm-hmm. to a WordPress conference if you are an accountant or, or a lawnmower repair person, , you know?

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Absolutely. No, I, I remember thinking the same thing when I was still in Miami, and I would go to meetups on the, um, f FIU campus, and I would mm-hmm. just, I would see all these college kids walking around or, you know, hanging out in public area studying and being like, yeah, there’s right in this room. There’s so much information that would probably be useful. But we d we, as far as I know, we didn’t have a relationship with that university to where we were able to reach the kids and say like, Hey, this is happening for free right around the corner from your dorm. Like, spend an hour on your Saturday and come hang out and learn, you know, learn about this. Um, yep. It just, it seemed like such a missed opportunity and I’ve never really been in a position to really try to change that. Um, but I think it’s super important and I hope it is something that changes in the future. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Cool. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me, tofa. I always love talking with you, whether it’s recorded or not, .

Topher DeRosia:
Well, thank you. I had a great time

Allie Nimmons:
As well. Awesome. All right. Thank you all of there, all of you out there for listening to us. And, uh, we’ll see you in the next episode.