Episode 172 – The Hallway Chats Of WordCamp Italy

In November 2022 Topher went to WordCamp Italy in Milan. While there he had several conversations with attendees and sponsors.

Episode Transcript

Topher: Hey folks, welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m your host Topher. This week is going to be a little bit different from usual. This last November, I had the opportunity to go to WordCamp Italy in Milan, or WordCamp Italia in Milano, depending on how your mama says it. 

While I was there, I got to have some actual in-person hallway chats with a number of people. And this week is going to be an aggregation of five of them. So you’re going to get to meet five really cool people that I have the opportunity to interview, and I hope you find them just as great as I did.

[00:00:40] 

Hey, everybody, this is Topher. I’m at WordCamp Italia in Milano, and I’m here with-

James: James Baldacchino.

Topher: James, why are you here? 

James: That’s good question. I’m here because I met two of the organizers in WordCamp US who told me it was coming up, and I said, why not? They also asked me whether I’ve been interested in applying to for a talk. My first reaction was, would I do? So I applied, they liked it, and here I am. 

Topher: That’s great. So you were at WordCamp US in San Diego? 

James: Yeah. That was fun. 

Topher: Did we meet and I forgot? 

James: Yes. 

Topher: I’m sorry. 

James: You met a lot of people.

Topher: I did. All right. Cool. So how did you get into WordPress? 

James: I joined Ellipsis 18 months ago. As simple as that. I’ve been using WordPress personally, of course, like most other people for a long, long time but I never realized there was such a huge community and such huge industry behind it. I have found WordPress incredibly useful. For example, when I was in a marketing job, which had zero budget, and I pulled together a lot of great websites for very low price. I loved it. But I never knew it was a beautiful shock to find out-

Topher: That’s a great word—beautiful shock. 

James: Yeah. 

Topher: When did you first realize the community was like that? Was it at WordCamp Us or did you find the community online? 

James: To be honest, the first year of working with WordPress, there was no WordCamp because it was all online because of the pandemic. WordCamps just cemented. But before, what made me realize what a tight-knit community this is was the fact that such a lot of information is shared so freely. 

Topher: Ah, yes. 

James: And there’s a lot of it as well. I’m coming from industries where if you have information, you don’t publish it, because you don’t want your competitors to know.

Topher: Right. Right. Proprietary.

James: So it was shocking and it was wonderful. I said, okay, then there must be more to this than what I realize.

Topher: And then you went to WordCamp?

James: And then I went to WordCamp Europe, which was massive. 

Topher: Oh, Porto? 

James: Yes. 

Topher: Did we meet there and I forgot?

James: No.