Underrepresented in Tech

In this episode, Allie and Michelle look at recent NFL news regarding diversity hires. In response, we talk about how to properly set diversity goals when it comes to building a team or company.

In this episode, Allie and Michelle discuss how providing support for someone going through grief is a lot like providing allyship for underrepresented people. There are tons of similar practices and methods and mindsets to help you be better at both.

In this episode, Allie and Michelle discuss thte difference between being an ally and being a white savior or relying on white guilt.

In this episode, Allie and special guest Aurooba Ahmed discuss the challenges of being a diversity advocate - both as an underrepresented person and as an ally. Namely, how challenging it can be when you don't know what to say, don't want to be loud, or don't want to draw attention to yourself. We name tons of useful ways to be a quiet or hidden advocate.

In this epsiode, Allie and Michelle talk about how they see the boundary between attacking someone else for saying or doing something you don't agree with... and starting a debate or conversation. The line can be thin and easily misinterpreted. But it's worthwhile to consider, because these conversations define how welcoming/inclusive a community is.

In this episode, we try something a little bit different! In a new async interview format, Allie chats with Lesley Sim, creator of Newsletter Glue! 

Episode Transcript: 

Allie Nimmons 00:00:02 Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons.  Underrepresented in Tech is a free database, but with the goal of helping people find new opportunities and WordPress and tech overall

Allie Nimmons Hi there, everyone, Allie here. Welcome back to another episode of the Underrepresented in Tech podcast. In this episode, we'll be trying something just a little bit different. We're interviewing Lesley Sim, creator of the Newsletter Glue plugin. Because it was tough to find a way for us to be on a call at the same time, Lesley has kindly agreed to an async interview. So let's get right into it. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, where are you from, and what do you do with WordPress?  

Lesley Sim 00:00:48 Hi, I'm Lesley. I run Newsletter Glue. We are a WordPress plugin that lets you publish newsletters from inside of WordPress. We help you halve your publishing time by publishing newsletters the way you would blog posts and double your distribution because all your newsletters are not only sent to your subscribers, but also published live on your website where your blog visitors can view them as well. And that also means that all your newsletter archives are now SEO friendly too. So Newsletter Glue. I run the business and marketing side of things. Um, so basically anything that doesn't have to do with the actual development work is my responsibility. One of the things that I've really enjoyed actually is getting better at product design. Um, it's something that I hadn't done before and actually found myself really enjoying it. Outside of Newsletter Glue and WordPress, I, I don't know, I'm a human being. I live in Singapore. I like reading scifi and fantasy. One of my favorite authors is Becky Chambers. So I think if you haven't already read her books, I highly recommend them. And if you have, then I think that you immediately have a good idea of the kind of person I am. Um, yeah, that's me.

Allie Nimmons 00:02:29 Tell me about the journey you went on creating Newsletter Glue from the first time the idea popped in your head to its launch.  

Lesley Sim 00:02:37 So Newsletter Glue is actually a pivot from our original idea. Um, the original WordPress plugin that we worked on was a membership plugin. So my co-founder whom I met, um, on the Indie Hackers forum, he's been building, he's been membership plugins for the past 10 years or so. And the membership plugins he's built has, you know, over a hundred thousand active installs to date. So he decided he was going to set out on his own and build a membership plugin because that was what he was really good at. Um, and as anyone who's ever tried to start a business, or more specifically a plugin business, knows the tech, the code is just a small part of what makes a business run. Um, so when we started working together and tried to market the plugin, um, we quickly found out that, you know, despite the fact that it was a really great plugin and he'd put in everything that he knew from the past 10 years of building membership plugins, um, the market was too mature and our plug-in was not differentiated enough to help it stand out. 

Lesley Sim 00:04:05 We had a really hard time getting off the ground. It also didn't help that it was my first time marketing a WordPress plugin. I didn't have a reputation in that space. And so when I was reaching out to people, there was a lot of, “Who are you? Why should I care or believe or trust you?” So we ran into a lot of problems and couldn't get the membership plugin off the ground. Um, and we were actually thinking about closing the membership plugin and going our separate ways, but in the course of building and working on the membership plugin, we built an add-on, which allowed you to send posts as emails to subscribers. Um, it was kind of like a small add on, and we just did it because Substack at the time was blowing up. Um, and to be honest, I wanted that feature for myself. 

Lesley Sim 00:05:06 So when it came time to discuss shutting down the plugin, um, I wasn't too sad about, you know, shutting down the plugin, but I was sas about losing that particular ad-on because like I said, I'd been using it for myself. I use it to send my own newsletters and I didn't know where else to go to find something similar. Um, and it was then that I realized that if I was sad about losing the plugin, then there was probably lots of other people out there who wanted something like that and couldn't find it. And that, um, I guess that inspired us to pivot and try to turn that tiny feature into a full blown plugin. So, you know, given that it was the second time around and given we learnt from a lot of our early mistakes, uh, I committed to doing everything differently.  

Lesley Sim 00:06:02 Um, from the start I tried to build in public, tell people about my journey. Before we built the plugin, we started, or I started, posting about it in Indie Hackers forums, Facebook groups, Slack channels, just kind of asking people if the idea of Substack for WordPress resonated with them and if they'd be interested in trying out our plugin, if we decide to build it. And the reception we got was completely different from the reception we got from our membership plugin. So with our membership plugin, I kind of did the same thing, but I didn't build in public as much. Um, I DMed people a lot more and I got a lot of, “Who are you? Why should I trust you? I haven't heard of you before.” The second time round I, um, posted more publicly and that I think made all the difference.  

Lesley Sim 00:07:04 So we had many more people interested and, um, many people who are signed up to, uh, you know, be beta testers, or even just set up to kind of share their thoughts on their struggles with Substack or their views on writing their own newsletters. And, um, yeah, given how different that reception was, it gave us the confidence that there was something here. Um, you know, it was clear that people wanted it and didn't know how to get it. And that gave us the confidence to move forward and create Newsletter Glue and make that our key businesses instead. And it's been going good so far. 

Allie Nimmons What was the biggest challenge and getting Newsletter Glue to where you wanted it to be? 

Lesley Sim I love this question. I haven't heard it before. I think the biggest challenge is, has been myself like, um, so every founder, I think, attacks a problem based on, you know, their own worldview, their own experiences, their own skill set, um, you know. To put it another way, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails.  

Lesley Sim 00:08:26 And I think the biggest challenge for any founder is kind of letting go of their biases or their, um, natural tendencies and allowing themselves to be more balanced. So in my case, I tend to be kind of more nitpicky, more perfectionist. I like tinkering with design and I want the user to be really good all the time. Um, and that on one hand that is like a great traitt and skill set to have, but on the other, if I'm spending way too much time nitpicking over the minor details as a small founder, you know, I'm just never going to get everything that I need to get done. And so learning to let go and to balance that out with speed has been, um, a challenge for me and something, you know, a good challenge cause I always enjoy, um, becoming more well rounded. And not just speed, but also learning how to market and sell better.  

Lesley Sim 00:09:42 So like if you asked me, I think one of the important things about any marketing campaign is having, you know, a well-conceptualized, um, campaign, good copy, good design, but also like the promotion side of things, how like understanding customer psychology, understanding, pricing, understanding, um, all the different elements that you need on a landing page. So like, that kind of stuff I've had to learn as well and kind of balance out that kind of, um, sales journey, promotion, pricing type stuff with the, um, design stuff and copywriting stuff that I'm more comfortable with. Um, so those things have been a great challenge to me. And again, it's like a challenge that I've really embraced and really enjoy solving. And I particularly like it when it's like, you know, something that I'm loath to do, but then the founders who are kind of the opposite of me, the ones who are really good at the promotional pricing, coming up with campaigns, making it really tempting for customers, but then like, they tend to be not so good at design so that when they challenged me in a certain way, I'm like, “Oh, I hate like but I know that I have to do it.”  I really like it when that happens. And it's something that I've really enjoyed for myself and enjoy going in that direction.

Allie Nimmons 00:11:19 This being the Underrepresented in Tech podcast, we do like to highlight underrepresented folks and the work that they do. Have you experienced any setbacks or challenges as a woman launching this project?

Lesley Sim 00:11:32 This is a tricky question because I don't know what I don't know. So I can't tell you, you know, how much easier it was when I first launched this project as a man versus how difficult it now is, because I feel like I'm now suddenly a woman. So like I can't, I can't tell you that. It's impossible for me to see. Um, so again, I can't tell you how many challenges are directly attributable to the fact that I'm a woman instead of a man, that I live in Singapore instead of somewhere in the US or in Europe. I can't, you know, I can't speak to any of that. Um, so I guess what I'll say instead is that I haven't personally approached it, um, any differently. I think I had the luxury of growing up in a very kind of female empowered household.  

Lesley Sim 00:12:30 Um, the school that I went to was an all girl school and we were kind of always, um, it was very opposite of, uh, “be a lady, be a housewife,” type of school. It was very like, “You can be the CEO, you can be the surgeon,” type of a school. Um, I mean, that was never explicitly said, but that was kind of the culture of the school. And so growing up, I never really saw myself as inferior to men. Um, and I think that that's helped a lot. Um, just kind of having that as the starting frame. I think I've also been lucky, to the extent that you can call it lucky, to have started this business, you know, in the post “me too” era in 2022, where people are a lot more conscious about these things. Um, and you know, I know it's not perfect, but in one of my jobs, you know, I would have a boss who would be down in the bar after work. And he’d pause the conversation to ogle at a woman and proudly say that he was pausing the conversation for that purpose and find it really funny. Um, and all the men at the table would laugh together as well.  

Lesley 00:13:57 I have had those experiences as well. And, you know, it's nice that we are in 2022 and at least for me, those experiences have seemed to happen less often. So yeah, I can't say that I experienced any setbacks for this project in particular. Um, and I guess I'm, I'm glad for that. It's sad that we have to be glad and thankful for something that should be, you know, standard or is standard for the opposite sex. So that's a bit sad but I guess there isn't much we can do about that except for keep chipping away, keep calling out things where they need to be called out and hoping that, you know, next generation doesn't even have to be grateful for it because they don't even realize it's something that is different or needs to, you know, needs noticing. Um, yeah. 

Allie Nimmons What advice would you give to any other women in the product space who want to launch something new?  

Lesley Sim 00:15:14 This is a difficult one because on one hand, you know, just going back to the previous question, on the one hand, the most correct and most ideal advice would be, you know, the exact same advice that I would give any man who is coming into the same, you know, product space who wants to launch something new like, that's the ideal, right? That there's no difference. Maybe the advice that I would give is for females or for women to not try to seek out women specific advice, because that's probably not a healthy starting approach. You know, if it turns out that you're facing a lot of discrimination and it's really frustrating, or you've like talked to a male tech bro and they completely undermine you and, you know, condescend you and stuff like that, then like maybe some woman’s specific advice and women mentors who are women would be called for it at that point.  

Speaker 1 00:16:18 But I think like if you're starting fresh, um, it's probably better to go into it without that baggage or without that fear and just kind of, you know, do you. And so with that in mind, I think the number one piece of advice that I can possibly give is to get to know people in your industry. Hang out where they hang out, make friends, because it's one of the things that takes years to develop and it pays dividends for years to come after that. Um, yeah, so like, you know, when I first started out building in public, being active on Twitter, being active in the Post Status slack group. It was awkward at first; there's always the cold start problem, but now I'm friends with a whole bunch of WordPress plugin founders, and I'm able to talk to them at any time and it's easy to see feedback and that wasn't something that happened easily or could be. It's the product of showing up every day, talking to people, helping them out, providing them with value and just kind of chipping away at it and approaching it, not so much as like, ah, this is a strategic partner that I'm going to schmooze for a year or something like that. 

Lesley Sim 00:17:52 Like that's not the way that I would approach it. I think it's just kind of making friends, hanging out that would lead to something that's more sincere. And long-term, I guess, so, yeah, that's, that's the advice that I would give. And with all that being said, if you're a woman in WordPress and just getting started who wants to get help or just wants to chat and are finding it intimidating to reach out and get to know people in the industry, feel free to reach out to me. You can DM me on Twitter at @lesley_pizza, or find me on the Post Status Slack group. Um, I think I've just Lesley there. Yeah. Just reach out, say hi, I'll be happy to help however I can and if I'm not the right person to help, I'll be happy to make an introduction to someone who's better equipped to help you and help you get started. Get started meeting people in the industry. Yeah. Reach out! I'm friendly or least I try to be.  

Allie Nimmons 00:19:00 If you could go back in time, what's one thing that you would have done differently in your journey with Newsletter Glue?  

Lesley 00:19:09 Um, I don't think there's anything that I would have done differently. I think I made a lot of mistakes and then I learned from them and I think that's pretty much the way these things go. Yeah, I don't think I would really have done anything particularly different. I guess that it's probably more of an indication that I haven't made any gigantic mistakes yet. I imagine, um, once I do it will be different and I'll have something different to see. Um, yeah. I think everything so far has kind of just been a part of the journey and, um, it's something that I'm enjoying.  

Allie Nimmons 00:20:00 What's next for Newsletter Glue? Can you tell us anything about your short-term plans or your wildest hopes and dreams for this plugin?  

Lesley Sim 00:20:09 Ooh, so it's really hard for me to be specific about the short term plans, because as much as I would love to share everything, um, it's hard because, you know, when you reveal what you're planning to build and then it takes significantly longer than you expect it to because that's how things always turn out. Then people get disappointed, or they get upset, or they might have purchased the plugin with the anticipation that a feature would come soon. And then, um, you know, it ends up taking six months to a year longer than you expect. That can be frustrating for people. I don't want to do that, um, to anybody. Um, so instead, I guess I have to keep it necessarily a bit vague, um, which is frustrating in its own separate way. What I can say is that I really want to a build more powerful set of publishing tools for people.  

Lesley Sim 00:21:10 So, you know, we have some pretty large news publications using us right now and it'd be cool to give them the tools to do even more cool things for specific segments of their audience spaces, or give them tools to help grow their newsletter better, or help monetize the newsletter better. So that's all kind of stuff that we have in the works and I'm pretty excited about. Again, I wish I could share more detail, but, um, I don't think it would be good for anyone if I did. The other thing that I want to talk about is integrations. So, we have a whole bunch of plans for integrating with more email service providers. If you have one, you know, please request them, but also we are starting to integrate with plugins as well. So whether those are learning management system plugins or e-commerce plugin, we went to help people who are building businesses on WordPress to be able to send newsletters more easily, rather than having to hop back and forth between WordPress, where you're already spending all your time in and are really familiar with, and then like hop to, you know, MailChimp, for example, where you're less familiar and it's frustrating and it takes a long time to send an email and you end up just kind of not doing it, even though, you know, that it'd be good for your business.  

Lesley Sim 00:22:46 So we're hoping to help integrate with more plugins and make it easier for people who are using those plugins to send emails. You know, whether that those are activation emails for when you have a new member on your membership site, or when you have a new customer on your WooCommerce site or you want to send, um, you know, your latest sale. We want to make all of that easier and something that you can do inside of WordPress. So that's something that we're starting to build out. Hopefully we’ll start launching some pieces of this this year but it will likely also extend to the next year as well. In terms of my wildest hopes and dreams, I think this comes back to one of my fundamental viewpoints on newsletters, and that is that it's kind of a core distribution channel for anyone who wants to grow a blog or any kind of publication online.  

Lesley Sim 00:23:54 And so my wildest dream is to become the Yoast for newsletters in the WordPress space. And what I mean by that is that when someone wants to start a blog for the first time or any kind of online publication, one of the first things they do is, um, you know, with their fresh WordPress install is the install Yoast because they understand that SEO and search engines and Google is a core and obvious distribution channel and it's something that they just kind of have to do. And so, I hope that they don't just install Yoast, they also install Newsletter Glue because they understand, you know, okay, this is a new blog. I have to number one, be SEO friendly, but number two, also have to start collecting subscribers and sending them out emails because not everyone's going to visit my blog all the time, but most people are going to be much happier getting an email update from me in my inbox.  

Lesley Sim 00:24:56 So yeah, I just want to be the default newsletter option for people and for people to understand that that's just, you know, the normal way to do things and to do it and then get on with it because they don't have to think about it further than that. Um, yeah, that's my wildest hope and dream for the plugin. Thanks, Allie, for having me on! This was great. I really loved your questions. They were really insightful and thoughtful. Before I go, I also wanted to give a shout out to the Underrepresented in Tech jobs directory. Allie, I think you replied to one of my tweets, um, with that job directory when I was looking to hire a marketing coordinator and I ended up reaching out to people there. And, um, yeah, I found that the people on there were really good and qualified, and I think that it's an excellent resource and I would definitely be looking to hire more people from there in the future.  

Lesley Sim 00:26:02 And I hope more people check it out as well, because like I said, I found the people there to be really good and qualified. So if you haven't already, you should submit your jobs there and also your resume because I think it's a great resource. Finally, if you're looking to get in touch with me or find out more about Newsletter Glue, you can, um, follow me on Twitter. I'm on there a lot at L E S L E Y_pizza. So that's lesley_pizza, and you can find Newsletter Glue at @newsletterglue, um, and also our website URL is newsletterglue.com. 

Allie Nimmons 00:26:43 Thank you so much to Lesley Sim for doing this little experiment with us. I really hope that you, as the listener, found something inspiring and worthwhile in this episode. We'll see you next week. 

This episode was sponsored by the following companies: Ninja Forms. Ninja forms is WordPress form building simplified. Build beautiful, user-friendly forms that will make you feel like a professional web developer, no code required. If you're interested in sponsoring an episode, using our database, or just want to say hi, go to underrepresentedintech.com. See you next week!

In this episode of Underrepresented in Tech, Allie and Michelle discuss a very unfortunate conversation that took place in a popular Wordpress Facebook group recently. They react to what was said, how it was said, and how the members of the group reacted. In total, they examine what this interaction can teach us about fighting for diversity and inclusion in tech and beyond.

In this episode, Allie and Michelle discuss the fact that many WordPress Contribution Teams are short on volunteers! Why is this happening? What can we do about it?

Episode Transcript:

Allie Nimmons  00:02

Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech podcast hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database, but with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress on tech overall.

Michelle Frechette  00:16

Hi, Allie! 

Allie Nimmons  00:17

Hi Michelle! Happy Friday. 

Michelle Frechette  00:20

Happy Friday to you. It's snowing here in upstate New York.

Allie Nimmons  00:23

Yay, it is not snowing here in Austin, Texas. I wish it was though.

Michelle Frechette  00:30

What people don't know is coming up soon, like, about a month and a half, you're coming to Rochester. And we're gonna do a podcast together sitting across the desk from each other. So that's going to be so cool.

Allie Nimmons  00:41

I can't, I can't wait. I'm so excited. The whole time I've known, you every single zoom call, except for the ones when you're at your house. Pretty much every single zoom call, you're in like the Give WP headquarters little building. And I'm so jealous that I can't be there because it looks like such a cute and fun environment. So I'm so excited. 

Michelle Frechette  01:05

You'll get to co-work with me and Amanda and Jeff that weekend; that's gonna be fun. And we're gonna have a dinner together and all of that. You get to meet all the people; that'll be great. And we've got to find a place and make appointments for tattoos.

01:19

Yes. And we'll be posting all over Twitter about all of that if anyone interested in following our escapades because whenever we get together, there are escapades.

Michelle Frechette  01:30

There are for sure. Some of them include my scooter. But that's another story for another day. Anyway. So 5.9 was released this week. And I thought we could chat about that we were talking a little bit. Josephine i know i love that too, just originally supposed to be out in December. And, you know, we we you and I were together at State of the Word and we know that that got postponed. And I think that's great, quite honestly. I think when things aren't ready, they shouldn't be released. And I was going over some of the 2022 theme and the full site editing and there's still some bugs in it. But that's another story for another day as well. This is not a develop- developer chat. But so far, things are still looking good. And I think it's pretty impressive. But one of the things that I've noticed, and I did it myself when I was on the same team you were, right, when we were on the the... 5.6 team together, was the first thing you do as soon as it releases this, take a screenshot where your name appears and start posting them. And I saw I've seen over Twitter, I've seen over Facebook, like where people are like, "Look, my name's there!" And it starts to really make you think about who are the people who contribute and what are they contributing? So most people know, I am not a developer. I know enough code to you know, really turn my screen white and things like that, usually. I mean, I'm not terrible, but I don't do PHP and I don't do JavaScript, and I certainly don't do React but but there are people who do. But! My name was still included because there are other ways to contribute besides developing code.

Allie Nimmons  03:10

Yeah. And that's super important. 

Michelle Frechette  03:13

Yeah, sure is, right? Because there's more to it. If only if every plugin company only had developers, nobody would be able to come buy anything because they wouldn't know about it, right?

Allie Nimmons  03:23

It would be a nightmare. Yeah. No one would know about the plugin. No one would know how to use the plugin. The plugin would look like trash. Like, yeah, there's so many other... other adjacent things within the tech industry that's not tech. Right? 

Michelle Frechette  03:39

Right. Yep, like content, documentation, videos, showing, you know, all the trading and things that go along with it. So there's a lot of ways to be involved. And one of the things that, you know, has been a hot topic lately, too, is that all of these contributors? It's voluntary, right. So unless your company is paying you some of your salary time to contribute to open source, you're doing it just out of the kindness and goodness of your own heart. Which means that if you are doing it, excuse me, out of the kindness of goodness of your own heart, using your own time and resources to contribute to an open source project, which is commendable, but it isn't often... A lot of people aren't often able to do that. So you know, we often talk about, we always talk about underrepresented groups, right? So I think of my days as a single mom, and I struggled to do everything during my work hours and spend time with my daughter at night. Like the thought of like staying up till three in the morning after she went to bed so that I could contribute to an open source project would have been like...

Allie Nimmons  04:43

That's unreasonable. 

Michelle Frechette  04:44

Not possible. Yeah. It just wasn't reasonable. Right, exactly. And I think, excuse me some of our talks earlier, like when we talked about what will be the cost for, let's say, a woman of color, who maybe is a single mom, maybe not right, but to start her own podcast when somebody was said, "Well, it's free to start your own podcast." No, it's not because there's opportunity cost. There's time cost, there's, and there's some monetary outlay of course, too. The same is true of contributing to open source. 

Allie Nimmons  05:14

Yeah. 

Michelle Frechette  05:15

Right. So the less privileged you are, the greater the cost to spending your time doing an open source project.

Allie Nimmons  05:23

So is a direct relationship there. And, you know, it's... you bring up the fact that there are people who are who are paid to contribute, right? They receive a financial monetary compensation for the time that they spend contributing. 

Michelle Frechette  05:38

By their companies to be clear, not from not from WordPress

Allie Nimmons  05:41

Not from WordPress.

Michelle Frechette  05:41

Not from Automattic, right.

Allie Nimmons  05:43

From WordPress related or adjacent companies, right? Yes, Automattic, or, I mean, Automattic is always the first one that comes to mind. But there are tons of other companies that do that as well. Um, but it makes me wonder, and I don't know if that data is public. How many contributors within each team are paid contributors? Does that make sense? So like, yeah. Say Automattic has 20 people on the payroll for contributions, are nine of those people doing code base contributions, and only one is like on the translation team? Like, I wonder how that money is actually allocated? And which teams are getting that, you know, indirect funding, right? 

Michelle Frechette  06:35

Yeah. 

Allie Nimmons  06:35

Because as a company, you are funding that team through a person, through their time and their energy. So I wonder if there's a breakdown publicly somewhere. Josepha! If you're listening, I really want to know how that's allocated. And you know, we're talking about this, because it needs to be talked about, but it came up between the two of us because Post Status, um, a couple of... in December, actually. This isn't a new episode. This is from December but it just floated across my timeline today. Post Status interviewed Milana Cap, who works on the WordPress Documentation team. And if you don't know the documentation team, there's some code base documentation that they handle, so documentation that exists like in notes in the WordPress source code, but a lot of it is just user facing documentation that somebody who's using WordPress can go to, you know, I guess wordpress.org, and read documentation to learn how to use WordPress. And in this Post Status episode, she is talking about, quote, the stark reality of the near overwhelming workload facing the WordPress Documentation team. Currently about four sponsored volunteers and fewer than 10 volunteers in total make up the Docs team, which is a team that's assigned to manage documentation for software that powers 43% of the web. And this just really struck me because we talk a lot about the idea that there are a lot of underrepresented people out there who have all of these tech adjacent skills, you know, marketing, SEO, documentation, translation, all these other things that don't necessarily maybe have to do with code. But I feel like there is a sort of belief among some people that it's like, "Well, I don't, I don't want to contribute to WordPress because I don't really know a lot about the software. I don't know a lot about the code. And I can't write code. And so, maybe this isn't the opportunity for me?" But if somebody were to come up to me, an underrepresented person, and say, "I have this fear but I do want to contribute to WordPress, how can I do that?" I would point them to teams exactly like this one, the documentation team, the translation team, the design team, all of these teams that don't really touch code, but they make it easier for people to use the software.

Allie Nimmons  09:11

And so it just kind of breaks my heart that we have all of these underrepresented folks around the world using WordPress every single day. And Milana says in the in the podcast episode, it's quoted here on this page, the best documentation is written by people who are using it, for using the software. Mot the people who wrote the software, I'm sure, although I'm sure they can write great documentation as well. But the people who use it on a day to day basis are the people whose voices are so primed to teach others how to use it. 

Michelle Frechette  09:44

Yes. 

Allie Nimmons  09:44

And so through this episode, I wanted to talk about that and also just shine a light on this problem that we're having. And if you're an underrepresented person listening, and you're thinking, you know, "I have an hour to contribute a week, maybe," that's really all it takes because I contributed to the documentation team for the... shoot, which release was it? It was the all women release squad? 

Michelle Frechette  10:07

5.6. 

Allie Nimmons  10:08

5.6. Thank you. That was the time that I was like, I'm going to make the time to contribute because I feel like this is like historical, I want to be a part of it. And I joined the documentation team. And all I did in that team was help do admin for the meetings on a weekly basis. Right? So Francesca Marano would give me questions that I would ask to people, ask to the group as a whole and I would like make sure that people got heard and it was it was admin. It was really just helping out. If I didn't know anything about WordPress, I still could have helped out with what was needed. Right? Um, so yeah, it just kind of broke my heart to listen and read about this problem, because there are people out there who can do this. And I don't know if it's a marketing issue. I don't know if we're just not marketing ourselves properly. I don't know if it's a onboarding issue, because I have, and I've talked about this publicly in various forums that while I loved contributing on that team for that release; it was difficult. The onboarding process was very difficult for me, because I just didn't know what was expected of me. And the people who are... it's this catch-22 of the people who are there contributing already are understaffed and have so much to do that it's hard for them to take additional time to teach new people what they have to do to be helpful. Right? So it's this revolving door of frustration. And so I don't know if maybe it's all of those things put together. Um, what do you think?

Michelle Frechette  11:53

I think definitely the, you know, you I think you hit the nail on the head with a marketing issue, right. So I know that WordPress Marketing is really geared towards people using WordPress. You know, like, every time I'm on YouTube, for example, and a WordPress ad pops up, it's all about why I should use WordPress. It's not about how I can contribute to WordPress. So there's, there's two ways that you market things, right? One is that you market to recruit people to do the job. And the other is that you market to people to use the product. And with open source, it's more along the lines of recruiting right than it is than it is marketing, but there's, but let's face it, recruiting is also marketing, right? You're trying to market why somebody should come either work for you or volunteer for you. And it's really hard to market and recruit volunteers when they really don't know what they're getting into. And yes, there's descriptions on you know, wordpress.org's site that tells what the different teams do but that still doesn't say, "This is what you're going to do if you help us with this XYZ." And I haven't attended I you know, I haven't attended one of the marketing meetings in a long time, just because my job has been so crazy and I have so many other things that I'm working on, you know, on a regular basis, that being part of the marketing team was one thing I couldn't commit to as much as I had in the in the past. But it also feels... it also felt to me like it was just the wheel turned so slowly, because all these volunteers but there's nobody holding anybody accountable to doing the things right. So, you know, you have a group of volunteers and you're like "we need help writing tweets." Well, but who's tweeting it? You know, who's like, what's the schedule look like? There needs to be a much higher level like a like admin over the area or like overseer or whatever the words we use to you know, to make sure that things are done timely and then even though we're volunteering

Allie Nimmons  13:54

Overseer. It has such a dystopian feel to it.

Michelle Frechette  13:57

It does, doesnt' it? 

Michelle Frechette  13:58

Team lead! My brain went. There you go. I just cuz like all of a sudden had visions of Handmaid's Tale in my head when I said overseer. But we do need somebody and maybe, I mean, I don't know what the right answer is. But maybe WordPress actually pays people to do those roles. I know, once upon a time, we tried that with marketing. It didn't work out the way we wanted it to. But I think it could work with number one: the right people in the seat whose only a job it was to do those things, who had the way to build an infrastructure that made sense, that people who were volunteering understood what the tasks were. It wasn't just about everybody gets together on a weekly or bi weekly basis and gives their opinion, but that we actually, you know, move forward in getting things done. So even when I was on the team, I didn't really know one week to the next, you know, what marketing we were supposed to be doing for the 5.6 release.  I've often said I did contribute, but I was probably the worst contributor of the whole group. I did a lot more like rallying around why women was a good idea and that kind of thing so it was kind of unofficial marketing. But yeah, I just, you know, I don't know what the right answer is. I also don't know how we get people from underrepresented groups to be able to see why they should do it as voluntary and also, with the understanding that anytime we volunteer for something, we're not getting paid for it. And we know that it eats into other things in our life. So if we can't do it during the day, when we're at work, if our companies aren't Five for the Future company, like we know, Yoast does that, we know that WebDevStudios does. Those are really committed companies who are at the top of the list as far as the Five for the Future goes. And they have an idea of how to move that forward and what they're doing, because they have people who are working within the company to make sure those things happen. You know, how do we really... I don't want to say acknowledge people, but what's the return on that investment time? And if you're involved in it, the return on the investment hat time has to be pride and seeing what goes forward. But how do you align yourself with somebody, as somebody who made that happen? When you're a coder it's a lot easier, right? But when you're like "I wrote 10 tweets," like, does that really feel like there's any ownership of it? I don't know. You know, it's definitely useful, you know, as it has to happen. But it isn't like, I could point to a line of code and say, I did this, that or the other thing. So yea.

Allie Nimmons  13:58

Team lead.

Allie Nimmons  16:29

You could make it for free?

Allie Nimmons  16:29

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a really complicated issue. And I think people in the past two, maybe two or so years, I think, since the pandemic, and a lot of, you know, I think... What I've heard is since the  pandemic, the number of regular contributors has kind of dropped. And it's kind of becoming a problem to figure out well, how do where do we find these people? Where do we get new contributors from? There's been this, this, this long conversation about paying contributors and how that could or could not work? I was on a Twitter spaces with Daniel Schutzsmith, who, if you're listening and you're really interested in like, WordPress community news and things that are going on in the community, and how people feel about things, please look up Daniel Schutzsmith on Twitter, because he's been doing like, I think he calls it WP talks, #WPtalks spaces, and just really interesting conversations. And he's bringing in directly people from the community to share how they feel. It's a really cool little series he started. Yeah, we were talking about the problem of paying contributors. How does that work? Is there a possibility of having an internal WordPress economy where WordPress users could donate money that would go directly into the pockets of contributors and how that's such a beautiful utopian idea that is basically impossible to implement on a logistical level, right? And going back to the marketing thing, like I just typed into YouTube, "what is WordPress contributing?" The only results I'm getting are about the contributor user role in WordPress. Like when you create a user for your WordPress site, there is a role called contributor that has certain privileges. And then there are a couple of WordPress talks or panels about people's experiences contributing to WordPress. Like there's one about contributing to WordPress as a non-developer, which is a super valuable topic. I'm not seeing a YouTube.. a WordPress... I'm seeing videos from the WordPress YouTube channel that are from WordCamps. I'm not seeing a video from WordPress that explains what contributing is and how to do it. Where is that? Why does it not exist? Can I make that? Will somebody pay me to make that because I will make it for you. Hello?

Allie Nimmons  17:00

I could, right? It's free to make YouTube videos.

Allie Nimmons  18:40

But like that was tongue in cheek, you know?

Allie Nimmons  18:59

Yeah, I know. I know. And my response was tongue in cheek as well. People can't see us rolling our eyes. 

Michelle Frechette  19:13

Right.

Allie Nimmons  19:13

But it's like, I feel like so much of the open source community is like... it makes me think so much more of us as a nonprofit, rather than a business. Right. And so for example, I recently watched the newest season of Queer Eye, which is on Netflix, right? And it's a show about these gay men who go and remake somebody's life and blah, blah, blah blah. And I watched the season specifically because it took place in Austin, which is where I live. And they visited this woman who had started this animal shelter for disabled animals. And it was just super. I cried for an hour because it was just it was such a beautiful episode. They built her a barn and I'm at the end of this episode. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Google. I'm trying to figure out how can I go volunteer at the shelter? How can I give this woman some money? What can I do? Knowing that this woman is in my community? How can I... how can I help her? Right? Because I have now spent one hour feeling this emotional connection to this woman and to what she does and what her vision is. Why are we not doing that for WordPress? Right? Like, the fact that WordPress has changed so many people's lives and allowed so many people to build brands and build businesses and build all of these things. Where is our nonprofit tear jerker, you know, content? Like when I was at GiveWP with you, that was a conversation that came up a lot when I would write blog posts with Taylor, right about if you're marketing your nonprofit, you have, you're not trying to manipulate people, but you're trying to make that emotional connection, because that's when people are going to reach into their stores, whatever that is, if that's their pockets, or their emotional banner, their energy, or their time, that's when people are going to do things. Where is that for us? I think it exists at WordCamps sometimes. But then you have to get people to the WordCamp, right? Where is our marketing content that says, "Look at the beautiful work that comes out of this and here's how you can help us." 

Michelle Frechette  21:33

You know, you said something about business. The truth is, WordPress itself isn't technically a business. Automattic is a business. Companies that use WordPress are businesses. WordPress.org isn't even, as far as I know, a 501c3, when there is the WordPress Foundation, and that is a 501c3, but WordPress itself, the software is just this giant open source project that people contribute to through time and knowledge. But it isn't even a business-business. You know, so it's this weird entity

Allie Nimmons  22:06

And that confuses people, like, what is this? Right, and I feel like people's default is to kind of put it in that company box. But I do think that in reality, we are more like a nonprofit, then like a company. Right? Right. 

Michelle Frechette  22:23

For sure. For sure. And that, you know, Automattic is its own thing. And then you know, people don't understand the difference between wordpress.com versus self hosted. And that's another whole story. But yeah! I mean, obviously, you and I are coming up with answers. We like to ask the questions and sometimes we have ideas but we're not omniscient, so we can't just solve every problem. But you know, and we ask people. Chime in! What do you think? Let us know! What do you think some of the issues are? What do you think some of the solutions might be? We'd love to hear them. And you know, if you in two weeks time, I will be out of town. And Allie will be running the podcast. If you have like a really great idea, not only like around this, but the podcast in general, something you want to talk about that has to do with underrepresentedess in technology, reach out to us because we would love to have you co host with Allie the week that I'm in Oklahoma City. So let me let us know! She'll be reaching out to people otherwise to see if they want to come on the show with her. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is Allie. I know that there's a lot of potentials, but I feel like we just leave this open ended and let people ponder. At the very least.

Allie Nimmons  23:36

I'll go ahead after I publish this and share a link to that Post Status....

Michelle Frechette  23:44

The podcast with Milana.

Allie Nimmons  23:45

Podcast epsiode! Thank you. I forgot the word podcast while I'm recording a podcast.

Michelle Frechette  23:50

That happens to me.

Allie Nimmons  23:52

I will share that. And yeah, at the very least check out that episode. Listen to what Milana has to say. If there's a bit of time you can contribute as a WordPress user to the Docs team, help them out.

Michelle Frechette  24:08

I think I will say to, I'd might as well throw this in there. If you think that you don't have time and you want to throw money at something to help the community. There is Big Orange Heart, you can contribute there. There are other nonprofits associated with tech and with the industry. And you can always sponsor one of our podcast episodes or even just visit our tip jar on our website and help us continue to do what we do for the community. We don't beg for money. That what we do, but I will remind you it's there in case that's something you want to support.

Allie Nimmons  24:42

Absolutely. I want to say that HeroPress also takes donations?

Michelle Frechette  24:47

They do. Thank you for bringing that up. Yes they do. So heropress.com. HeroPress Network? That's what it is. heropressnetwork.com and you can contribute to their endeavors either as a recurring sponsor or a one time gift. 

Allie Nimmons  25:06

Yeah. Fantastic. 

Michelle Frechette  25:08

And they're always looking for stories, too.

Allie Nimmons  25:10

So, absolutely.

Michelle Frechette  25:11

If you want to tell your story go, go hit them up, and they would love that. 

Allie Nimmons  25:14

For sure. 

Michelle Frechette  25:16

All right. 

Allie Nimmons  25:17

Thank you for listening to us yet again this week. 

Michelle Frechette  25:20

Gentle reader, dear reader.

Allie Nimmons  25:22

We're nearing 50 episodes. Do you believe it?

Michelle Frechette  25:27

Ridiculous, I know.

Allie Nimmons  25:28

And we have a little we have a little. I don't think we should announce just yet but I'll tease it. We have a little thing that we're going to be doing in preparation for 50 episodes. So make sure you keep listening to to hear about that and get involved with that. 

Michelle Frechette  25:43

Absolutely. 

Allie Nimmons  25:43

Yeah. We appreciate you. I appreciate you, Michelle. 

Michelle Frechette  25:47

I appreciate you, Allie. Have a great week. 

Allie Nimmons  25:49

You too. Bye. 

Michelle Frechette  25:51

Bye. 

Allie Nimmons  25:54

This episode was sponsored by the following companies: Ninja Forms. Ninja Forms is WordPress form building simplified. Build beautiful, user friendly forms that will make you feel like a professional web developer. No code required. If you're interested in sponsoring an episode, using our database, or just want to say hi, go to underrepresentedintech.com See you next week.

In this episode of Underrepresented in Tech, Allie and Michelle discuss what you should be looking for or creating as far as company culture! And not only that, Michelle has an amazing announcement!

Episode Transcript:

Allie Nimmons  00:02

Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech podcast hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database, but with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall. 

Michelle Frechette  00:17

Hi, Allie! 

Allie Nimmons  00:19

Hi, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Frechette  00:22

I am good. I'm cold, but I'm good. It's only like 11 degrees Fahrenheit here today, but that's okay. It's sunny. And I have my slippers on. I have a sweater so we're good. 

Allie Nimmons  00:32

Cool. Yeah, it's been super cold here too. I mean, not 11 degrees. But I think last night it got down. Well, I mean, yesterday it hailed here in Austin. It was low 30s which is it's that's the coldest it's been since I moved here last July. 

Michelle Frechette  00:46

I believe it. 

Allie Nimmons  00:47

Yeah. Is is pretty cold. I prefer cold weather to hot weather. 

Michelle Frechette  00:53

I like in between. 

Allie Nimmons  00:56

 Yeah. Ideally, I like in between. But if I had to pick one of the extremes, I'm a cold weather girl.

Michelle Frechette  01:02

I love when people post like on Facebook and stuff like "The people who complained about the heat in the summer are not allowed to complain about the cold in the winter." And I'm like, I reserve the right to complain about extremes. Yeah, sue me.

Allie Nimmons  01:14

I like complaining about everything all the time.

Michelle Frechette  01:20

I love it. I love your topic for today. So why don't you lead us in and tell us what your idea was talk about today? 

Allie Nimmons  01:25

For sure. For sure. Well, I heard about this amazing new event that's coming. 

Michelle Frechette  01:31

Oh, tell me! 

Allie Nimmons  01:33

It's called WP Career Summit? I don't know. I don't know if you've heard of that. Is that does that ring a bell for you? 

Michelle Frechette  01:40

Um, it's it's faintly familiar. I may have built the website yesterday.

Allie Nimmons  01:45

Well, I applied to speak at WP Career Summit this morning. And the spoiler alert the people who listen to our podcast may - if I get chosen to speak that is - may get a early peek of my topic. I... The the talk that I submitted. Rewind, backup. WP career Summit is meant to distribute content about hiring and getting hired. From what I gathered of the description, right? That was where my focus was like, information for people who are looking to hire or information people who are looking to be hired. Crum, Which was kind of tough for me at first, because I'm like, I open my own business right now. And I don't, I don't have any employees. So I was like, what can I really reasonably talk about right now, that is that would be applicable to this, to this event? I started thinking about like, reasons why either I've left companies before, or reasons why I haven't applied for jobs before. And a lot of it comes down to company culture, like the culture that that company builds. And I can't think of any other verbs right now. But and a lot of that comes out... 

Michelle Frechette  03:07

Creates! 

Allie Nimmons  03:07

Yeah, creates, perpetuates, supports, sustains, all that kind of stuff. And a lot of times you can tell a company's culture, before you even like walk in the door, quote, unquote, I can often tell a lot based off of their social media, based off of the way that other people who already work there talk about that company, or don't talk about that company, I can tell based off of the website, sometimes what their culture might be like. And so I picked that topic to talk about, because I think it's important for both sides of the equation, right? If you're looking for a job, and you're an underrepresented person, a lot of times the company culture can have a huge impact on your experience as an employee in a particular place. Because so many tech companies have a very specific type of culture that they like to sustain, that is not very inclusive, and is not very diverse. So being able to determine that before you even apply is really handy and helpful. And business owners need to know and be aware of like, what is the vibe that I'm putting out there? What is the culture that I'm sustaining? Maybe you do have a really great company culture, and you're not communicating that to the people who are thinking about applying to work for you. So like, how can you do that? So yeah, I thought we could talk a little bit about that today on the podcast. f

Michelle Frechette  03:42

For sure. 

Allie Nimmons  04:37

What are your thoughts and feelings? 

Michelle Frechette  04:39

No, I think you're absolutely right. So there's been there have been places where I've worked before where as soon as I walked in the door after I got hired, I was like, "Oh my god, what am I doing here?" This is - you can almost like the difference between how rosy everything is in an interview versus like the palpability of despair when you walk in the place? Yeah, one particular place in mind, right? It was a very small company. There are literally four employees. I was the fourth employee. And as soon as I walked in the door, I was like, I have made a grave error. I think I lasted three months, until I found something else to go to. And then I literally quit on a Friday and said, I'm not coming back. Like, I didn't give two weeks notice. It's like, This is it. I'm done. I've already packed my bag. Everything's in my car. I'm out. Because that's how horrible it was. So yeah, I think it's super important. I mean, companies when they're hiring, look for you to be a good fit but it's so important to remember that when you are interviewing at a company, you are making a determination of whether or not you want to work at that place, too. So I'm constantly telling people, if you don't like it, you don't have to go back for a second interview. You can say in the middle of an interview, I don't want to waste any more of your time, I've already decided this isn't a good fit for me and get up and leave. I mean you're not beholden to anybody to try a job just because it was offered to you, even if the money is amazing. If you're gonna be miserable, it's not worth it. So yeah, so fit is super important. Because culture is where that fit comes in. Right?

Allie Nimmons  06:15

Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many red flags that I've kind of learned over the years. Because like, prior to me starting to work in WordPress, I didn't really have a lot of jobs. I started in WordPress really young, like, I, I worked in maybe three different places before this and it was always just sort of like, I'm poor, straight out of college, and I really need a job. So like, Are you hiring? Yes. Okay, I'll work here. And the culture and the fit wasn't as important to me. But as I get older, it becomes more and more important. And it becomes more and more apparent to me when the culture is wrong. Right. I think we've talked about this on the podcast. But if I even just go to the website, and I see, you know, all those awful buzzwords we hate like "Ninja" and "Rockstar" and "Guru." And like, that's not the culture I want to be a part of, right? I always look at a company's about page or team page. If I can't see any faces of the people that work there, or at least see some names, that's, that's weird to me. Right? That's for sure that that kind of shows that there's not a lot of - A) That there's too much turnover. Right? And so they can't keep up the profiles on the website, or that the people, the people that work there aren't really proud of being there, or the people who own the place are not super proud of like, I want to see, because and also the thing I look at, I hate. And there are companies in WordPress that do this. And so I don't want to make anyone feel badly. But I really hate when companies call themselves a family. Or when you know, that I was really, you know, "our employees are all.. it's like we're family." No, no, no, we're not. 

Michelle Frechette  07:59

Right. 

Allie Nimmons  07:59

We're all here to make money. Are you kidding me? Like, I consider certain people in WordPress, like family, I consider you like family. But that is because we have a connection that if both of us stopped working in WordPress today, we would still be friends. You know? 

Michelle Frechette  08:16

Absolutely. 

Allie Nimmons  08:17

And so that's a huge red flag for me. Right? Like, oh, look, join our family. Absolutely not. Do not, do not manipulate me like like that. That's that to me is a form of emotional manipulation that companies do sometimes, inadvertently, sometimes you really want to mean that, but it's not healthy.

Michelle Frechette  08:36

Like, I don't want to work for my dad, and I don't want to work for anybody that's like my dad. So yeah, if that's what family means, then let's not do that now.

Allie Nimmons  08:44

Yeah, exactly. Um, so yeah, those are like things, like just looking at a website. Those are those tells me a lot about the culture. As a woman, as a black person, I really like to see on a company website or on their social media, like, do you... what do you do for those communities? Right, like, is your company culture, does that include, you know, giving money to charities or giving money to organizations, uplifting and including people of color and women? Like, even if you don't have anybody working for you at the moment who falls into one of those boxes, do you share content from people like that? Right? Like, all of that kind of stuff is really important to me. And this is all even before I might have even like had an interview. Right? 

Michelle Frechette  08:50

Mm hmm. Absolutely. 

Allie Nimmons  09:14

Um, I feel like I'm talking a lot you go.

Michelle Frechette  09:39

Tag, you're it! Absolutely. You know, I've been places, I've worked places before, where I was the first woman to work there. I've been played. I've worked places where I was the youngest person. I've worked places before where I was the oldest person and all of those come with different levels of maybe anxiety, right? Like the being the youngest person, you're sure you're going to be looked on as a person who knows nothing. Being the oldest person, you're sure you're going to be looked at as the person who knows nothing, especially in technology, right? I mean, it's true. And being a woman, you're sure you're gonna be looked at as the person who knows nothing. So it doesn't matter where you fit in those kinds of places. When - I think I mentioned this before- when I did work for my father's company, 30 years ago. It was 30. Oh, my God, I'm so old. It was 30 years ago I worked for my father's company. And one of the ways that we were evaluated annually, was we did that 360 type review where other people had to give their inputs on how you worked. I was the office manager at the time, right? I just graduated college, whatever. And it's an engineering company. So one of the things you were to evaluate people on was their technical skill. Well, the engineers didn't think about the fact that I had to be technically good at my job, not technically good at their job. So they all gave me like a one out of five. Luckily, my dad, who was like, who owned the company said, yeah, they didn't understand the assignment. So we're not going to include that metric on your evaluation. Because I technically knew my job incredibly well. They couldn't do my job, just like I couldn't do their job. I wasn't designing processing equipment, right? So. So having an understanding of what somebody's role is, is just as important and how that culture works. Because if your job is not to build a website, then you should not be looking at somebody and evaluating their skillset and their fit in the company on how they might build a website. It's like, the old adage about, like, you could... you can't teach a fish to ride a bicycle, so you shouldn't evaluate them on whether or not a fish can ride a bicycle.

Allie Nimmons  11:39

Yeah.

Michelle Frechette  11:40

Or something like that.

Allie Nimmons  11:41

And even just what I got out of that is like, understanding what the people you work with really do, like having that kind of interdepartmental. Like, I hate working at places, hate is a strong word. I dislike working at places where the departments are very separate. And it's like, you know, maybe only the department heads talk to each other, but nobody else has any sort of communication. Because you're not, you're not understanding the big picture. You're not getting an appreciation, like those who just mentioned, don't have an appreciation for what other parts of the team do. So as an example, when both of us worked at Give at the same time, I really loved when we had our monthly, we had a monthly all team meeting. And we all every, every, every everybody, no matter where you worked at the company, got on a call, all of us together. And all of the departments shared, you know, what was going on and like gave particular people shout outs and like, it was a really, really awesome, overall, look at everything that was going on. It just put a lot of things into perspective. And, you know, when I would hear about, like, how many calls the customer support team would do that month? Or like, how many... how many subscriptions? Jeff specifically got that because he was always the one to get the most right. Like, I never really spoke with Jeff or had that because like, we were doing our own things all the time. But every month like hearing about how great Jeff did, I'm like, now I have this really positive, like loving impression in my head of "Jeff is just a really hard worker who's really good at his job." And like that, as a simple like, culture thing is so important. For like, not a lot of effort too, right? Like, I feel like people like "oh, we have to reinvent our entire company culture. And this is going to be so much work. We have to hire all these like consultants and blah, blah, blah." Just give people the opportunity to appreciate each other. And I'm trying to think what like other examples of culture things that I really liked. A lot of it just came down to like having access to each other, having access to other people, being able to appreciate other people. And on the flip side of that, right is, like we talked about just now, like the whole family thing. Like I feel like some companies are like, they go too far, to try to like, have all these perks and all these wonderful things that you can do and gifts and blah, blah, blah. And it's like that, that to me is not really culture. That still reads to me as like emotional manipulation, to where it's like, well, if you go into work, and there's a foosball table and free snacks, and you know, all of these really cool things, we can treat you like garbage. Because, you know, we provide such a fun environment and like, 

Michelle Frechette  14:33

Right! We balanced it! We balance the fact that we abused you on one side by giving you foosball and a cereal bar on the other. So that doesn't work.

Allie Nimmons  14:42

It makes me sad and I've worked at places that have done that, right? Like given employees really great things and then kind of dangled that above them like, "Well look how nicely we treat you. Why are you not absolutely killing yourself for us?" Because of how and... So like when we first started working at Give together, I remember very clearly, my first day of work, you Slack DMed me and said, "Hey, welcome to the team! I want to send... what's your email, I want to send you a Starbucks gift card." And I was already like, "Oh, no, it begins!" Like, I was super... I was scared of that, Michelle. I was really scared of that, because I was like, I do not want to be emotionally manipulated. I don't want to be given gifts. And and, you know, have that kind of that, have that start over again. And of course, I realized over time that like, you were just being nice and that's just a thing that you do, right? That's not a company policy or anything like that.

Michelle Frechette  15:34

That's just how I welcome other women into the company.

Allie Nimmons  15:36

It is really sweet and I appreciated it. Um, yeah, I think companies need to keep that kind of stuff in mind too. Where like, company culture is not just like spoiling your employees, it's actually appreciating them publicly. 

Michelle Frechette  15:54

I don't know if you know this, but when I do hiring, so like when I started hiring people, way before I was working at Give, but but especially when I started working at Give,  one of the questions that I asked, and I don't think anybody has ever told me that they've ever heard this question in an interview before. But one of the questions I ask potential employees is other than financial compensation, what is a way that you like to be appreciated for the job that you do? And for some people, it's like, I really just like an email. I'm just you can call me up and tell me, text me, DM me, whatever. For other people. It's like they like public praise. Some people like, wouldn't it be great if you took me to lunch once in a while? I mean, like, depends on what it is right? But even if they don't necessarily have as a distinct answer, one thing they know is that I like to appreciate people so they know that that's something that is part of my supervision is that I will find ways to appreciate you when you work for me. And I can't control all of the budget. I can't like just give you raises every time you do good stuff. But I certainly can make sure that other people know you're doing a good job. I can write little notes on your desk. I can do... you might come in and there's a chocolate bar like anything like that. Because for me that's making sure that people feel appreciated in a different way than the company. I want them to feel appreciated by their supervisor.

Allie Nimmons  17:15

Yeah. I love that. It's like your, your work love language.

Michelle Frechette  17:20

Yeah, I did. I did that. It's not just work, that I do that with my friends. I do that with my family. You know, like, every once in a while, I'll just Venmo my daughter $30. I'll be like, you and your husband should go out to dinner tonight.

Allie Nimmons  17:33

Yay!

Michelle Frechette  17:34

Just because. You know, that kind of thing. 

Allie Nimmons  17:35

You're so cute. You're a giver, you're such a giver.

Michelle Frechette  17:40

You know when I can, I do something? For a long part of my life. I didn't have the ability to give because I didn't have the the financial coffers to be able to do that, if you will. And I was always the recipient, and I am definitely a pay it forward kind of person. So now that I can I want to do for other people.

Allie Nimmons  17:59

Yeah. That's what I love about you, 

Michelle Frechette  18:02

Right back atcha! If I can, I know we're running close on time because unfortunately, I have a million meetings today. But I did want to bring things back to the Career Summit if I might, just put a little plugin for that. Yeah. So what people may or may not know about me is in addition to the work that I do at WP or Stellar WP, I did it backwards. Stellar  WP, I'm also on the staff at Post Status. And when Corey Miller hired me in to Post Status, I had.. he hired me into to write about underrepresentation and he hired me to write about jobs, because that's what he saw me doing mostly in the community. And since then, like, you know, I have a bunch of other stuff that I am empowered to do over there. But I said to him very early on, I think we should have a career summit. I've never seen anybody talk about jobs in WordPress, really. And I've certainly never seen anything that's actively trying to help people find jobs, other than just putting postings out there. We do that with UnderrepresentedinTech.com by trying to give people better opportunities to be found. But one of the things I wanted to do is take what we've learned at WP, at Underrepresented in Tech, take what I've learned in other places, my Wednesday tweets for example, and turn it into a really actionable thing and that is WP Career Summit. The website launched this morning WPcareersummit.com. We are not a nonprofit organization at Post Status and so we are actually paying our speakers. It's not a ton of money but every one of our speakers will be thanked with a $200 stipend. So if you're interested in speaking on hiring or on ways that people can improve their their job search process, whether that's how they do interviewing, how they do write their resume, things like that. Go to WPcareersummit.com. Certainly register to attend. It's free for everybody to attend. If you are a company who is interested in sponsoring, there's a page about sponsorship. And if you are somebody who would like to talk there's a page to apply to speak as well. 14 speakers, two tracks, one for job seekers, one for employers. And I am just, if you can't tell, super excited, super jazzed to be able to put this conference on. Yeah, I'm just super excited about it. So read about it on Post Status. Read about it on WPcareersummit.com. I have heard that it will be appearing on the Tavern today. I'm very, very excited. 

Allie Nimmons  20:24

That's so exciting! I'm really happy for you. You've been talking about this idea like, I've heard you talk about WP Career Summit as a concept for like a long time. So I'm so happy that it's finally becoming a real thing. And yeah, I hopefully I will be chosen as a speaker. I know that I don't get special treatment because of our friendship. But I'm hoping I get chosen as a speaker. And if I don't get chosen, I will definitely still attend and support and all of that good stuff. Yeah, Congratulations!

Michelle Frechette  20:56

Thank you. And unfortunately gonna wrap it up here. Don't know what we're gonna talk about next week. We have some ideas for you. I always like to tease out that we don't know where to talk about we might actually have some ideas but then you know, things always change. But thank you, Allie for being so amazing.

Allie Nimmons  21:10

Thank you for being so amazing. See you next time. Bye!

Michelle Frechette  21:13

Bye!

Allie Nimmons  21:17

This episode was sponsored by the following companies: Ninja Forms. Ninja Forms is WordPress form building simplified. Build beautiful, user friendly forms that will make you feel like a professional web developer. No code required. If you're interested in sponsoring an episode, using our database, or just want to say hi, go to underrepresentedintech.com See you next week.