Earlier this month ManageWP invited me to do an AMA with the community. It was an interesting experience. Emily Schiola did her traditional round up on the top takeaways, but I wanted to take this opportunity to elaborate on some of the answers I gave during the AMA.
To be honest, I was worried that I wouldn’t get a lot of questions. I already share a lot about myself, my story, and my process on social media, through blogging, and by appearing on many WordPress podcasts. To my surprise, however, I received a lot of questions and I had a really great time answering them.
Doing All The Things
Asif Rahman asked me how I’m able to do all the things I do and this lead to a really good question: “If you could go back in time would you focus on one thing and push more on that?” While I do recognize the importance of focusing on one thing, I think it’s important to explore different areas in order to find a niche that you’re passionate about.
It’s really great advice, and I give it all the time.
It is important, however, to keep in mind that finding your niche isn’t easy. If I didn’t ask myself where I was headed and try new things, I never would have gotten to where I am today.
I’m still trying to figure out where I want to be. Right now, I’m facing the problem of having too many great options available, which is so much better than having no options at all.
Alive And Breathing
When it comes to productivity, I suspect a lot of what keeps me focused and able to get so much done is my healthy diet and vitamin regimen.
My point isn’t that you should get a good night’s sleep, eat a high-protein vegan diet and drink two large cups of coffee made with freshly roasted fair-trade coffee for increased efficiency, but rather that the body is an important part of the stack, and self-optimization is key. We spend a ton of time talking about computers and software but I think it’s important to start lower down the stack.
I also can’t emphasize enough the importance of a good chair. At the end of 2014, I invested money I had originally saved up for a computer in a really nice chair, and it has been amazing. My computer still isn’t the best, but, at least, it doesn’t hurt to sit in front of it for 10+ hours a day.
You Can Embed Images On ManageWP
ManageWP renders a plain link to an image as an actual image. This amazing functionality certainly made the AMA more interesting once Roy Sivan and others became aware of it and started dropping GIFs all over the AMA. It seems like a little thing, but there is a reason why Facebook and Twitter are making it easier than ever to react with GIFs in their platforms — it’s fun and it improves communication.
I love oEmbeds in WordPress — the ability to paste a YouTube link and have it render the player in the post content is impressive. I wish WordPress offered the same functionality with external image links. I will have to look into how to make that work in WordPress.
What The REST API Means For WordPress Is Still Unknown
A few questions related to how the REST API will change WordPress came up, and I stand by my answers. That said, I acknowledge that they were highly speculative.
We still don’t know exactly what WordPress will look like in three years, or even one year for that matter. I strongly believe that WordPress core’s job is to provide infrastructure for developers to realize their own unique solutions to the problems presented to them and their clients and users.
As WordPress grows in popularity, there is no way one interface or kbe front-end view layer can satisfy everyone’s needs. I see the REST API continuing to not only provide more than a default solution but also offer possibilities for others to go further.
Take Me As I Am
The questions I answered ranged from serious to absurd. Chris Wiegman asked me “Pirate or Ninja?” and when Roy challenged me on my short answer, I elaborated with a brief history of the pirate culture in the colonial Atlantic as a protest to the rise of global capitalism and a brief nod to my childhood love of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball club.
Part of what’s so amazing about WordPress is that the community that surrounds it is so inclusive. I can’t possibly explain how much that means to me.
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