Episode 151 – Dan Maby and Michelle Frechette

A Conversation with Dan Maby and Michelle Frechette

Dan and Michelle have been working together to make WordFest Live be a top notch, world-wide WordPress conference. We talk with them about it works and the difficulties of making a global event happen.

Show Notes

Website | WordFest.Live

Twitter | @danmaby

Twitter | @michelleames

Episode Transcript

Topher: Hey everyone, my name is Topher.

Cate: And I’m Cate.

Topher: And this is Hallway Chats. Our guests today are Dan and Michelle. Welcome.

Michelle: Good to have us.

Dan: Hey, good to be with you.

Michelle: Absolutely.

Topher: We’re glad to have you. This is our first Hallway Chats since we took it over. So you guys are very special in that regard.

Michelle: Very honored.

Dan: What a privilege!

Cate: Or victims. I’m not sure which one to go with. But we appreciate your patience and willingness to put up with us.

Michelle: It’s okay to be a guinea pig sometimes.

Cate: Guinea pigs are adorable. So, Michelle, speaking of guinea pigs, you set yourself up nicely, how about if you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, what you do?

Michelle: Sure.

Cate: Anything, you know.

Michelle: As you said, I’m Michelle. I live in Rochester, New York. It’s summer here now, but it’s not as summary as it might be for where some people are listening from. I am the director of customer success for GiveWP by day, and I’m a volunteer and on the board of Big Orange Heart outside of that, which just kind of permeates all of the time, so day, night, whatever.

In addition to that, I’m the co-founder of Underrepresentedintech.com and I’m a podcaster myself as the podcast barista over at WPCoffeeTalk.

Topher: So Michelle, how can we help you find more things to do?

Michelle: Well, you know, I still have a few hours at night when I have insomnia. So if there’s something you need, just let me know.

Topher: Excellent.

Cate: Insomnia. I need to get that.

Michelle: I don’t recommend it. One star. Not recommended.

Cate: Dan, why don’t you go ahead and tell us [00:02:00] about yourself, where you live, what you do.

Dan: Sure. I am the founder of Big Orange Heart, a mental health charity that supports and promotes positive wellbeing and mental health within the remote working communities. I am also the founder of a digital agency called Blue 37 based here in London in the UK. And just generally keep myself very, very busy across the WordPress community. I’m very passionate about the people side of our wonderful community.

Topher: I know you’ve been involved with Big Orange Heart. WP&UP; is what it was before. Can you tell me when that started and when it turned into a full-time job?

Dan: Good question. Well, the idea of the charity started around 2013, I believe. I was actually in a position of struggling myself. I was wanting to connect with like-minded people to be honest, and realize that I was in quite a dark place, working alone in an environment where I just didn’t have people to interact with on a regular basis.

I’d come out of that kind of office environment and was working from home. And I just saw my mental well-being struggling to be honest. That’s really where the idea of I figured if I was struggling, certainly there are going to be other people out there as well that were also in a similar situation.

Topher: Sure.

Cate: Yeah. Definitely.

Dan: That took some time from that point on to then start to evolve this into Big Orange Heart, the nonprofit that it is today.

Topher: That’s really cool. I like it. Michelle,